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Stronger storms, longer seasons: How hurricanes will change in Georgia's rising waters

By Marisa Mecke, Athens Banner-Herald,

2022-09-30
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Climate change impacts communities in both small and large ways throughout the year, whether extended heat in the summers or wildfires out west.

As hurricane season peaks and after Hurricane Ian battered Florida, climate scientists are delving into what they know and are looking to discover how a warming climate will exacerbate future hurricanes and tropical storms.

A lot of ingredients are needed to cook up ideal conditions for a hurricane: warm waters, low pressure, humid air. But parsing out what role climate change plays in that stew is a complicated task, one that climate scientist Tom Knutson is tackling at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab.

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Knutson works forward and backwards. He looks at past hurricanes to see changes over time and then uses models to simulate how hurricanes might behave in a warmer world.

"It's a complicated topic, especially for the Atlantic region," Knutson said.

For starters, Knutson said it's important to note that the tropical Atlantic is warming up, so not only are average global air temperatures rising but also the surface water is heating. Moreover, sea-level rise makes it easier for hurricanes to flood coastal regions.

More major storms, rapid intensification

Those are the straightforward items scientists can pinpoint, but when looking at evidence of how the storms themselves have changed, the waters get murky.

There hasn't been a change in the number of hurricanes in recent years, according to Knutson. But since 1980, storm intensity has increased. More storms have been major hurricanes (Category 3 or above), and there's been an increase in the proportion of storms that undergo rapid intensification.

Even with this evidence, Knutson said it's hard for scientists to figure out where these changes are coming from, which is where his work takes place.

"There's been a few decades where things are active and then are quiet for a few decades, and then back to active," Knutson said. "It makes it hard to sort of identify long-term trends (with) these big swings going on between (multi-decade) periods."

Knutson and his peers have some theories: Changes might be due to natural variability, changes in the ocean circulation, or it could be related to aerosols, a form of air pollution. But none yet can be conclusively pinned down as a cause.

Looking toward the future, Knutson said he can use models to see how known changes in the climate might impact hurricanes. Models show that there's about a 7% increase in rainfall per one degree of warming, as well as a 3% increase in maximum wind speed per two degrees of warming.

Longer hurricane seasons possible

According to University of Georgia Weather Network director Pam Knox, there's other impacts outside of these factors that hurricane watchers may see in the future. While warming may increase how intense the hurricanes become, she said it's also going to change the season as a whole. Knox said that with warmer summers, hurricane season might start earlier and end later in a hotter climate, opening a larger window of the year for more intense hurricanes take place.

"Not only do you have stronger winds blowing water onshore as the storm surges, but you also have that happening on top of the sea level that's rising," Knox said. "So it's kind of a double whammy for the Georgia coast."

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