TThis week, Hurricane Beryl became the first hurricane in history to reach Category 5 in the Atlantic Ocean, hitting the Caribbean and killing at least six– and experts say climate change is making extreme weather events like this much more likely.
O National Hurricane Center said on Tuesday that Beryl “is expected to bring deadly winds and storm surge to Jamaica on Wednesday and the Cayman Islands on Wednesday night and Thursday.” The hurricane is not the only extreme weather event that has occurred across the world in recent days – violent storms have led to inundation in Switzerland and Italy; and forest fires raged Greece It is Arizona. While research has not proven that climate change is the direct cause of each specific extreme weather event, demonstrated that climate change can make some of these disasters more intense and more frequent.
“It’s important to remember that extreme weather existed before climate change,” Alex Hall – professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – tells TIME. “The climate is variable, the weather is variable; we expect there to be extremes. But it turns out that the probability of extremes has changed and the probability of these types of events occurring is greater.”
Hurricanes depend on a warm ocean to form. Because of this, hurricane season generally runs from June to November, when the oceans are warm enough for a hurricane to develop, says Marcus C. Sarofim, a physical scientist in the Climate Science and Impacts Division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. USA (EPA). But Beryl is “unusual” and “unprecedented,” Hall adds, because it happens very early in the hurricane season, before the highest ocean temperatures are typically observed.
“Climate change is tipping the dice in favor of events like this,” says Hall. “The fact that we are seeing this unprecedented event occur is entirely consistent with climate change.”
See more information: How Hurricane Beryl is breaking storm surge records
Current research indicates that while climate warming will likely lead to less frequent Category 1 and 2 storms, it will lead to more frequent intense storms, such as Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, Sarofim says.
Warmer temperatures also allow Earth’s atmosphere to retain more water, which can lead to heavy rainfall, says Steve Vavrus, director of the Wisconsin State Office of Climatology. Heavy rains often lead to flooding, which can overwhelm existing stormwater systems, he adds.
“A lot of our infrastructure was built for a different climate than we see today,” says Vavrus. “We really need to take stock of how to prepare for climate change as we face it in the future.”
On the other hand, because the atmosphere can hold more moisture, this could require more evaporation, which could lead to drier conditions on land, according to Vavrus. Coupled with record heat, these dry conditions could increase the risk of wildfires. According to a new EPA Report released on Tuesday, the amount of area that wildfires have burned in the U.S. has increased since the 1980s. The report found that the 10 years with the most area burned by wildfires have all occurred since 2004 – coinciding with some of the most registered heat.
Some extreme weather events can also have “cascading effects,” says Hall. In 2023, smoke from wildfires in Canada traveled to New York City, turning the sky into an orange haze and affecting air quality.
Extreme weather events often affect human health, Vavrus says. Beryl caused power outages on several Caribbean islands. Storms in Switzerland and northern Italy left at least four people dead.
In addition to the costs to human health, there are financial consequences of climate change, such as rebuilding or repairing damage caused by floods or wildfires, Vavrus says.
Sarofim says there are many ways people can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, including using more efficient appliances, turning off lights when leaving a room, and using public transport or driving more efficient cars. In the US, greenhouse gas emissions will decrease by around 1.9% in 2023, according to estimates released in January by the independent research company The Rhodio Group.
“The best strategy for reducing the likelihood of these types of extremes is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions,” says Hall. “We need to slow climate change and ultimately reverse it.”
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This story originally appeared on Time.com read the full story
