How much has climate change goosed hurricane wind strength in last several years?
Human-caused climate change made Atlantic hurricanes about 18 miles per hour stronger in the last six years, a new scientific study found Wednesday.
For most of the storms — 40 of them — the extra oomph from warmer oceans made the storms jump an entire hurricane category, according to the study published in the journal, Environmental Research: Climate.
A Category 5 storm causes more than 400 times the damage of a minimal Category 1 hurricane, more than 140 times the damage of a minimal Category 3 hurricane and more than five times the damage of a minimal Category 4 storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
For three storms, including this month’s Rafael, the climate change factor goosed wind speed so much that the winds increased by two storm categories.
“We know that the intensity of these storms is causing a lot more catastrophic damage in general,” said lead study author Daniel Gilford, a climate scientist at Climate Central, which does research on global warming. “Damages do scale (up) with the intensity.”
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