Hurricane Ian and the new era of rapidly accelerating storms

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text:

Philip Bump
@pbump
·
Follow
Of the eight hurricanes on record in which windspeeds increased the most over a 24-hour period, six have happened since 2000.

washingtonpost.com
Analysis | Hurricane Ian and the new era of rapidly accelerating storms
Most of the hurricanes that have become dangerous unusually quickly are storms that have emerged this century.
11:26 AM · Sep 30, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/30/climate-change-hurricane-ian/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/RVuia

One of the reasons that many experts prefer the term “climate change” to “global warming” (beyond the political provenance of the former term) is that “climate change” doesn’t constrain expectations about what might happen as the world gets hotter. The globe will warm, certainly; air temperatures have risen and will continue to rise. But there are myriad other effects, some related to air temperatures and some not.

For example, water temperatures will also rise (and have also risen). That means water will expand, accelerating sea level rise. Rising air temperatures, meanwhile, mean that air can hold more moisture. Climate change will spur longer, deeper droughts — but also, because the sky contains more moisture, bigger rain- and snowstorms.

The arrival of Hurricane Ian in Florida this week provides an example of what warmer ocean water and more atmospheric moisture can yield. Writing for Axios, Andrew Freedman described Ian’s rapid intensification as it neared Florida, something that is relatively unusual from a historical perspective but clearly linked to factors correlated to climate change.

As he noted, that storms like Ian are getting stronger faster provides a very real and immediate risk to areas in the hurricane’s path.

“The danger of a rapid intensification shortly before landfall is that people will be caught off guard by the stronger storm,” Freedman wrote, “and get stuck in a vulnerable spot for storm surge flooding, damaging winds or both.”

*snip*