A record-setting hurricane season just ended. Explore what we know, think we know, and are just learning about how climate change is influencing the world’s most dangerous storms.
By Brandon Miller, Drew Kann, Judson Jones, Renée Rigdon and Curt Merrill, CNN
Illustrations by Leanza Abucayan, CNN
Published December 3, 2020
Katrina. Maria. Andrew. Haiyan.
Hurricanes are the most violent storms on the planet. The names of the most damaging ones live on because of the devastation they left in their wake.
Known outside of North America as tropical cyclones or typhoons, hurricanes are essentially massive engines of wind and rain that are fueled by warm ocean water and air.
This heat energy is converted into lashing winds and driving rainfall that can bring devastating impacts when they hit cities, homes and infrastructure.
Over the last two-plus centuries, human activity — mainly the burning of fossil fuels – has added lots of heat to the oceans and air where these storms are spawned.
The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record, and many of the storms that slammed into the Gulf Coast, Central America and the Caribbean this year exhibited hallmark signs that they were supercharged by global warming.
In 1961, Hurricane Esther became the first storm to be recorded by a weather satellite. NASA
Though global temperature data goes back over 150 years, hurricane records are actually very sparse prior to the 1970s, when satellites first began capturing images of all of the world’s oceans.
While scientists are still learning exactly how this added heat is changing hurricanes, research shows that the storms are becoming more destructive in some key ways.
Here’s what scientists are most confident is happening to hurricanes as a result of climate change, what they think might be occurring and the biggest questions about how these massive storms are changing that remain unanswered.
No comments:
Post a Comment