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Writer's pictureKyra Myers

Is Climate Change Making Hurricanes More Extreme? 

Hurricanes have appeared to become more intense, and climate change might be the driving factor.
An outer space view of a hurricane. Image provided by Pixabay

Over the past month, the southern United States was hit with one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in its history. Hurricane Helene, as of now, has already claimed over 200 lives with hundreds still reported missing. Only a few weeks later, the state of Florida was hit with yet another hurricane, causing further damage in Helene-affected areas. With such intensive storms, many people have called into question humanity's role in the increase of extreme weather. Could it be possible that climate change is making our planet’s weather more deadly?


Before answering this, it’s important to understand what causes hurricanes to form in the first place. 


The key factors needed for a hurricane are warm waters, low atmospheric pressure and low wind shear. According to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, over these warm waters humid air moves upward in a low-pressure system. This causes clouds to form, gaining strength until they grow into a powerful storm. As the air continues to rise, the hurricane begins rotating. As long as the waters the hurricane moves over are warm, and other factors like wind shear remain low, the hurricane continues to grow in power. From this, dangerous natural phenomena are made. 


With warm waters being so crucial to a strong hurricane, this is where climate change comes into play. These changes in weather patterns over the years have been attributed to numerous human activities. Actions like burning fossil fuels, or even driving gasoline cars, send gasses like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, which trap sunlight and heat up the planet. More heat in the atmosphere then creates the warm waters that hurricanes love. 


Despite on-going debates on climate change and its effects on Earth, it’s clear to see that its implications on weather are real. Research from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory has found an increase of only 1 degree Celsius can increase hurricane wind speeds by 4%. This can easily upgrade a hurricane from a Category 3 to a devastating Category 4. 


The damage caused by hurricanes has continued to rise to billions of dollars, while death tolls shoot up alongside them (even though infrastructure quality and understanding of hurricanes have increased). Global warming certainly seems to be making hurricanes more intense. 


However, just because hurricanes are getting stronger, does that mean they are occurring more frequently due to climate change? Even though the back-to-back impact in Florida seems to suggest so, the data may not agree. Over the past two centuries, the amount of hurricanes that hit the United States has actually decreased. In fact, the 1800s frequently had 20 or more hurricanes on the mainland each decade, while the mid-1900s to early 2000s have remained under 19. 


Therefore, there is no clear-cut answer to whether hurricanes are getting “worse” due to climate change or not. While hurricanes are certainly seeing dangerous increases in intensity, there is nothing that suggests we are getting hit by them more often. When they do hit, however,  they have caused overwhelming death and damage. Even though hurricanes may not actually hit the mainland as often as before, it is still crucial that we acknowledge climate change and its effect on the weather intensity. If we ignore climate change, the catastrophic damage and loss of life will only increase. 




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