The devastation caused by Hurricane Ian in the United States is another wake-up call for the world to understand the danger of Climate Change. The increasingly warmer planet has become a big challenge, causing large-scale destruction by the increased amounts of rainfall and flooding in almost all parts of the world. Climate Change is making the planet warmer and a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and become a reason for increased rainfall rates and the amount of rain a storm can produce. The negative impact of Climate Change can increase both the maximum intensity that a storm can achieve and the rate of intensification that can bring it to its maximum level.
The worst nightmare of the recent storm’s forecasters came true on Sept 28 when Hurricane Ian, initially a Category 3 storm, suddenly turned into Category 5. At the begging of last week, the storm had wind speeds of 75 miles per hour. They intensified very quickly and those speeds had more than doubled just after 48 hours. As Hurricane Ian made landfall in southwestern Florida, its winds hit 155 mph, leaving roads in the state submerged with floodwater.
In just a few days, the storm did what six other storms did over the past six years as they approached the US. The storm slammed into the Gulf Coast of Florida on Sept 28 with a record-breaking increase in wind speeds, making life almost paralyzed in the state as extreme rainfall became the most destructive aspect of the storm for its central parts.
According to the data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the state received over 12 inches of rainfall in just 12 to 24 hours in a wide swath from Port Charlotte to Orlando. At the most affected locations, the storm produced 1-in-1,000-year rainfall.
Category 5 is considered the most severe category for a hurricane. Meteorologists identify such a sudden growth in the intensity of a storm as rapid intensification. They see many factors behind it, such as warming waters which are fueled by Climate Change. They describe such rapid growth as hurricanes whose wind speeds surge by about 35 mph or more in less than 24 hours. But, they do not consider wind speed as the only force that makes hurricanes dangerous. According to them, the storms whose intensity has abnormal and sudden growth can have a more devastating impact because they catch the people living in coastal areas off guard and give them very little time to evacuate and make protective measures.
Warming Waters
One of the factors that have given sudden growth to Hurricane Ian is warming waters as they gave the storm more energy to release through crushing winds and pounding waves. The storm got sudden intensification after it traveled over Caribbean waters that are about 1 degree Celsius warmer than normal. The reason behind the warm Caribbean waters was Climate Change.
Climate scientists say the sudden growth in the intensity of storms may become even more frequent as the world gets warmer, adding that as the water gets warmer at ever deeper levels, the fast intensification of tropical storms will increase. The increasing temperature of the planet is driving more flooding from hurricanes and tropical storms as more powerful hurricanes hold more moisture, making them more explosive in the form of torrential rains and storm surges.
Studies on past storms show that Climate Change made them bigger and strong because of which they dropped more rain and caused more devastation. Climate scientists called for the world to take the challenge of Climate Change more seriously.
