Hurricanes are the world’s costliest natural disasters and they are intensifying because of climate change. Eighty-five percent of all hurricane damage is caused from Category 3, 4, and 5 storms. A hurricane with 150-mph wind speed has the potential to do 250 times the damage of a hurricane with 75-mph winds. As the Earth’s climate warms there has been a substantial regional and global increase in the proportion of the strongest hurricanes – category 4 and 5 storms. Wind is not the only problem. Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration project that the amount of total rainfall will increase by about 15% by the end of the 21st century leading to even more disastrous flooding.
On Tuesday the western region of Cuba was hit hard by Hurricane Ian. When Ian slammed Cuba it was a Category 3 storm with top winds of 125 miles per hour. The power grid on the entire island collapsed leaving people without electricity and trapped in deadly floods. On Wednesday just after noon Ian collided with the west coast of Florida with even more destructive force. Hurricanes pick up strength from warmer ocean water. The Caribbean Sea is now about 1.8ºF (1ºCelsius) warmer than in the past. By Wednesday morning Hurricane Ian was a powerful Category 4 storm with “extremely dangerous” rains and winds” and it reached 150 mph, just below Category 5, when it landed near Fort Myers between Tampa and Naples. Category 5 is the strongest classification for a hurricane. During the last thirty years, only two Category 5 hurricanes had made landfall in the United States.
Meteorologists report that before hitting Cuba, Hurricane Ian became 67% stronger in less than 22 hours and it was further turbocharged as it travelled from Cuba to Florida. Ian is one of thirty Atlantic tropical storms since 2017 that gained this amount of destructive power in less than a day. During the same period there were 32 similar storms, known as cyclones or typhoons, in the eastern Pacific basin. Climatologists predict that this phenomenon will become even more frequent as the oceans and the Earth continue to warm.
Up until now, the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season was relatively mild, probably because of the Pacific Ocean’s La Nina effect that sent dryer air east over the Atlantic. Atlantic storms, while not more frequent, are nastier. According to University of Albany hurricane scientist Kristen Corbosiero, “this season could be a harbinger of sort of what is to come." Over the last ten years, there were about 25% more rapidly intensifying storms in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific than were recorded 40 years ago.
It is too early to determine the impact of Hurricane Ian but according to a spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute insurance modelers estimate that the damage will be between from $20 billion and $40 billion. Within hours of landfall more than 300,000 customers lost electric power. Many evacuees were stalled on highways as millions of people were forced to flee the storm, while large numbers of Floridians ignored dire warnings and remained in place believing they could ride out this storm as they had others in the past.
Even less intense hurricanes have devastating impact. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy inflicted over $50 billion alone in damage making it the second-costliest hurricane in the United States up until that time. At its peak it was only a Category 3 hurricane, however when it made landfall in New York City on October 29, 2012 wind speed had dropped and it was considered a tropical storm. Its storm surge flooded streets, tunnels and subway lines and cut power in the city and the surrounding area. Approximately 100,000 homes on Long Island were destroyed or severely damaged, including 2,000 that were declared uninhabitable. The wind and the rate of rainfall from Hurricane Sandy were moderate for a hurricane, but flooding was extensive because a number of factors lined up, the size of the storm, that it was traveling from east to west and slow moving, and that it made landfall during a full moon at high tide. In May 2020, Cyclone Amphan struck India and Bangladesh forcing the evacuation of over 2 million people. In August 2020, heavy rains in China’s Sichuan Province flooded the Yangtze River and threatened the Three Gorges Dam, where water levels were at their highest since it opened in 2003. It was the fifth time the river had flooded in one year with the last flood setting a high water record. Over 60 million people were affected, more than 50,000 homes destroyed, and damage was at least $30 billion. In September 2020, the western Ionian Islands of Greece were battered by Cyclone Ianos that flooded streets, destroyed crops just prior to harvest, tore down buildings, and caused millions of dollars in damage. Before the 1990s, hurricane-like cyclones, known as Medicanes, rarely happen in the Mediterranean Sea because the climate there is generally dry. In recent decades, the average speed of Atlantic hurricanes has slowed by more than 15%. In September 2020, Hurricane Sally stalled over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico absorbing power and water and then flooded coastal communities in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a priestess who rejected a liaison with the god Apollo and was condemned by him with the gift of true prophecies that no one would ever believe. Explaining the threat of climate change to Republican’s like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis is like being cursed with the power of Cassandra. In a 2021 press conference, DeSantis declared dismissed scientific recommendations on addressing climate change as a “bunch of left-wing things” and announced that in Florida “we're not doing any left-wing stuff.” He warned Floridians that if climate mitigation or adaptions policies were put in place “gas would be six or seven bucks a gallon” and he job was to “sure people are able to have affordable energy.”
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