How Man-Made Climate Changes Make Storms More Devastating

A new forecast method has found a definitive link between extreme weather events and human-caused climate change. Human-created climate change has a direct effect on storms, making these more devastating.

Kevin Reed, the climate modeler of Stony Brook University in New York and his colleagues have said in their latest study that they could forecast the severity of the impact of climate change on the hurricane ‘Florence’ in Carolina. What they have found is that ‘Florence’ would have 50% more rains on some parts of Carolinas in conditions of man-made climatic change. This study forecast that an unusual increase in rainfall rate would deluge the places unprecedentedly. The increased temperature of the sea surface and the consequent huge amount of moisture that become available in the air would make the rains more devastating. Another factor, according to their forecast, is that ‘Florence’ would have a diameter 80 kilometers wider than in situations where climate change is absent. Greater diameter would engulf more places under the wrath of the storm.

“How much devastating a storm, a hurricane or a typhoon can become in the man-made climate change condition and what would have been the impacts of such weather conditions had there been no man-made climatic changes”- was the idea that led to developing the new assessment study.

Wherein most of the studies on the devastation by storms etc. are done much after the occurrence of the event, the innovative methods used in the study by Kevin Reed et al forecasts the severity caused by man-made climate changes over a storm that is already in place. In their study, they used the climate simulations of the international project called C2OC+

The importance of the study is that now we have the direct quantification of the impact of climate change over extreme weather conditions like storms etc. It has been observed in the recent past that extreme weather conditions like storms, heavy rains, heat waves are becoming more devastating. Although in a very preliminary stage, the study also shows the possibility of assessing how dangerous is resultant of climate change in the cases of storms etc.

The recent flood in Kerala that caused widespread destruction of property and killed many followed unusual rain of about 255% than the normal rate for almost a week. The abnormal rain was the main cause of devastation, and is attributable to the climatic changes. The new study also hints towards this.

The  extreme weather events of 2016 and the devastation, according to weather scientists, would not have happened without climate change in place. The deadly heat waves that swept across Asia, the drought in the  southern parts of Africa due to El Nino, the Harvey hurricane in Houston etc., were the subjects of much research on the impact of climate change on extreme weather conditions.