Cole Hood - Climate Change Altering Hurricanes

Cole Hood
January 25th, 2019

Hurricanes can become even worse. Imagine Hurricane Harvey with an extra 25 knots of winds and increasing rainfall by 10%. Yeah, it can get even worse, and it will. If climate change continues on the upward trend then this will become a reality.

According to the balance.com, Hurricane Harvey, the second costliest hurricane on record (second to Katrina), destroyed 204,000 homes, dropped 60.5 inches of rainfall in one town in south Texas, and caused a total of $125 billion in damage. That was one hurricane.



It is unknown if climate change will increase the number of hurricanes, but the intensity of hurricanes is expected to rise. As mentioned earlier, the intensity can rise causing rainfall to increase 10% and adding up to 25 knots of wind. The reasoning behind these estimates comes from the ocean levels rising and warmer sea surface temperatures. Ocean levels are on the rise thanks in part to the icecaps melting from climate change, and warmer sea surface temperatures are from fossil fuel emissions. The warmer the Earth becomes, the more water vapor is condensed into clouds forming hurricanes that are naturally more intense.

One obvious solution to this comes from the reduction of carbon emissions for the world in total.
Although this sounds simple enough, for now we may have to look for damage control for the short run. Just as a response to the incoming increased hurricane damage capacities, there are ways for communities to increase their resilience. According to the Center for Climate and Energy solutions, communities can: elevate vulnerable buildings, preserve wetlands, replenish beaches, improve infrastructure (sea walls), design structures to be resilient to winds, discourage building in dangerous areas, and adequate preparation for the storm coming.

Personally, I find hurricanes beautiful, yet deadly. From our satellites in space, we can see the 
beautiful pirouette of clouds dancing across the Earth in a mesmerizing fashion. What I do not 
appreciate is the damage that they can leave behind. The factually-backed evidence claiming that hurricanes of our world will become stronger scares me for how much of a byproduct of human impact on the Earth. Already a destructive creation of nature we are making more powerful. It makes me wonder what haven’t we figured out that human impact has already negatively changed...

 Questions:
What effect can new technologies have on the increasing intensity of hurricanes?
Are there any new inventions that could be made to help aid in hurricane resilience?
What can be done now to help decrease the ever increasing intensity of hurricanes?










Comments

Anonymous said…
I realize that climate change could cause a plethora of problems in the environment, but I didn’t know that they also affected the intensity of hurricanes. I did a bit of research, and some storm experts predict that there will be fewer Atlantic hurricanes because of the possibility of an El Niño this year. However, we cannot completely rely on the will of Mother Nature to save us from the detriments of hurricanes, especially since we contribute to climate change. By decreasing our carbon footprint, we can decrease the negative effects of the storms. That would decrease the amount of damage we would have to rebuild, and then the extra money could be used to build better technology and infrastructure that could help the environment.
January 26, 2019 at 11:41 AM
Anonymous said…
The mentioning of altering intensities of hurricanes was quite unexpected. Whenever I thought of hurricanes, I only saw how many and how long they last, along with what they leave behind their trails. Moreover, I saw that the first question drew a connection between hurricanes and technology. From this, I realized how important companies with advanced technology, especially those that have ties to the energy industry, are.
January 26, 2019 at 2:46 PM
Anonymous said…
Global warming and climate change have remained a highly discussed topic; however, I had never realized that the human actions leading to climate change has had a direct effect on natural disasters. We hear about hurricanes time and time again as disasters we have almost no way of preventing or stopping, but only something we can prepare for. The fact that humans have contributed to the rising intensity of hurricanes — after all, since the 1970s, the number of hurricanes that reach Categories 4 and 5 in strength has roughly doubled — is shocking. While we cannot prevent a hurricane from forming, we can help lessen the strength of them (or at the very least, make sure the intensity doesn’t increase in the future) by being more environmentally conscious and reducing our CO2 emmissions. In this situation, the effects of global warming aren’t something we can put off to the future. Hurricanes are devastating communities around the world, and we owe it to ourselves to actively try to lessen the impact of future humanitarian disasters.
January 27, 2019 at 6:43 AM
Anonymous said…
As if hurricanes weren't already bad enough! The fact that natural disasters worsen due to climate change is just another bullet point on the list of how us humans are wrecking our home. There is no turning back now, but we can certainly help with damage control for the sake of future generations. The simple lifestyle changes that everyone discusses really can make a difference if they caught on: carpooling, composting/recycling whenever possible, using sustainable energy at home, reducing meat consumption, etc. This shocking truth about global weather has make me even more conscious of the effort for change that we all must give moving forward.
January 27, 2019 at 2:34 PM
Anonymous said…
This was a very interesting post and I had no idea that climate change could affect hurricanes! I looked further into how exactly climate change has been increasing the intensity of hurricanes and found that as the ocean warms and expands and as glaciers and ice sheets melt, sea levels will continue to rise. This increases the threat of storm surge, which is when powerful winds drive a wall of ocean water onto land, for coastal areas. For example, Hurricane Katrina came with a 28-foot storm surge which unleashed a devastating flood across the city of New Orleans. Storm surges that accompany high intensity hurricanes could completely destroy a city and ruin the lives of hundreds. Clearly, actions should be taken whenever possible to prevent further climate change and the rising intensity of hurricanes that could come with it.
January 27, 2019 at 4:01 PM
Anonymous said…
All of us have heard about both the negative effects of climate change and the damage left in the wake of natural disasters, but I had no idea that climate change directly affected natural disasters. I did more research on how global climate change affects natural disasters. The world’s oceans have absorbed 93 percent of the increase in the planet’s energy inventory from 1971-2010. The global warming conditions cause a rise in ocean temperatures and levels, which has caused the sea levels to rise by roughly 7-8 inches since 1900. This damaging effect to our oceans can be easily prevented if we work on reducing our carbon emissions: simply by carpooling, starting gardens, and eating locally grown foods, we could begin to reduce the carbon emissions that have become so harmful to the earth.
January 27, 2019 at 7:11 PM
Anonymous said…
The increased impact on natural disasters is one the average person and the people in power tend to ignore. Hurricanes are devastating and inevitable, and that will only continue with climate change. However, they are still inevitable without climate change lurking behind our backs. I feel one of the things humans can control, however, is the losses we receive from hurricanes. We live in an era where we could develop environmentally conscious hurricane-resistant buildings via engineering, and it would also help to make homeowner’s insurance more readily available to people in areas vulnerable to such disasters. Truly, the struggle against hurricanes is one we must fight on multiple frontiers.
January 28, 2019 at 6:15 AM
Anonymous said…
First off, great blog post! It is fascinating how the hurricanes of the past have slowly been getting more and more intense. This topic is one that is directly applicable to helping others, being that hurricanes often devastate the eastern coast of the United States. You mention that Climate Change is most likely the cause of these storms getting worse, and I think that anything we could do to at least lessen our impact on the world could have monumental consequences for the health and safety of others.
January 28, 2019 at 6:41 AM
Anonymous said…
I have always wondered whether hurricanes were getting more intense as time went on, so this is very scary to see that this is actually the reality. Most of this increased intensity is due to anthropogenic warming, or human activity that warms the earth. The obvious solution is to slow down climate change, but this is easier said than done because it involves politics and economics, not just studies and theories. It is very scary to know that this is actually our current reality, and I hope we make positive change on this topic very soon.
January 28, 2019 at 6:42 AM
Anonymous said…
Althought it might feel as if its too late to stop the rising temperatures that come with climate change, we can make small efforst to stop the increase in damage of the natural disasters that wreck homes and tear apart families and towns. These natural disasters are becoming worse, and in my research I found that North Atlantic hurricanes are getting stronger, there are more category 4 and 5 hurricanes, and the average cost of repair for these hurricanes are $1 billion. These hurricanes are wrecking the enviornment, taking away lives, ruining homes and buildings, and hurting the economy.
January 28, 2019 at 9:07 AM
Anonymous said…
Your blog post really helped me to regain a deeper understanding of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. I knew that there were ill effects of climate change, but I didn’t realize how directly it resulted in such a powerful natural disaster like hurricanes increasing in strength and quantity. I like how even though you said the obvious solution is to reduce greenhouse emissions, you gave a more realistic solution in trying to prevent casualties of these stronger hurricanes. New technologies can help detect hurricanes further before they strike land, giving people in strike zones more time to evacuate or prepare for the hurricane. They can also help to reduce the impact of the hurricanes, for instance, I once read about a new type of sand bag that is normally light and easy to move, but quickly expands to act as a full sandbag when hit by water by absorbing massive amounts of it. At the same time, it is still increasingly important to try and reduce greenhouse emissions and climate change to attack this problem at the root.
January 28, 2019 at 7:45 PM
Anonymous said…
I was unaware that global warming and increasing worldwide temperatures were a reason for the increased intensity of hurricanes. Your post led me to do some research on my own, and I found that on average, the intensity of hurricanes, measured by wind speed, amount of rainfall, and destructive damage, has been on a steady rise since 2000. This is very concerning, and it can be tied back to the point that you made about a warmer Earth causing more intense hurricanes. As individuals, we should all do our part to decrease our carbon emissions, which helps to slow down global warming, in order to try and prevent more and more intense hurricanes in the future.
January 28, 2019 at 8:50 PM
Anonymous said…
Climate change resulting in increased intensity of hurricanes certainly provides a very obvious and pressurizing incentive to be aware of and reduce our environmental impact. I decided to look into the purpose of hurricanes and found that hurricanes act as a way to balance global temperatures; they redistribute the heat from tropical regions towards the poles to prevent the tropics from getting too hot and the poles form getting too cold. It makes sense, then, that increased temperatures result in increased intensity of hurricanes, as the more heat there is the more powerful storms you will need to effectively redistribute it. The obvious answer to prevent this trend is to reduce our emission of greenhouse gases, and I feel that we can supplement current efforts with future technology. By focusing more resources into developing technologies that better harness the energy from renewable energy sources, we can reduce our production of greenhouse gases while maintaining sufficient electricity production. Hopefully, these new technologies will be easily available and affordable on an individual, national, and global scale.
January 29, 2019 at 8:30 AM
Anonymous said…
It is always important to understand our influence on the world around us. I really appreciate this post! It is time to acknowledge that yes, humans have worsened global warming. I found that when it comes to hurricanes, some analysis even suggests there is a sea surface temperature threshold close to 83°F needed for the spawning major hurricanes. Global warming may actually cause some hurricanes and some major hurricanes to develop that otherwise would not have (by raising sea surface temperatures above the necessary threshold at the right place or time). This is especially true in the Atlantic, where sea surface temperatures appear to be closer to the threshold than other hurricane-forming basins.
January 29, 2019 at 10:50 AM
Anonymous said…
This was a very informative blog post! Scientists have discovered that warmer ocean temperatures and higher sea levels will intensify hurricanes in the future. With warmer temperatures, more precipitation will also accompany hurricanes, leading to more damage which will result in losses in the billions. These detrimental effects are a result of climate change, or an increase in greenhouse gases. Thus, one of the only ways we can prevent this is by reducing our output of carbon emissions. This therefore, will help decrease the intensity of hurricanes and save lives and money.
January 29, 2019 at 11:11 AM
Anonymous said…
I agree with your perspective; I never thought that humans would play such a major part in the intensification of hurricanes, and I mistakenly attributed natural disasters to just natural processes. We need to be more aware of our actions and their direct impact on the environment, especially when it comes to reducing our emissions into the atmosphere. We can accomplish this by minimizing our carbon footprint: carpooling and taking public transportation, consuming less meat and more locally grown foods, and using more clean and efficient energy sources. Perhaps in this approach, we can ensure less devastation by natural disasters for the future generations on Earth.
January 29, 2019 at 1:29 PM
Anonymous said…
This was a very enlightening blog post on a crucial topic. The inclusion of the positive feedback loop example really drove home the cumulative impact that humans have on the environment. If a step in the cycle isn’t broken, hurricanes will continue to grow stronger until new technology and preparation won’t be able to protect us. The only way to break the chain is to create a global initiative to reduce fossil fuel consumption and investment in clean energy research.
January 29, 2019 at 3:49 PM
Anonymous said…
It is scary to think how much more dangerous a hurricane can become. Through greater research I learned the climate change not only effects hurricane patterns, but also factors such as heat waves, drought, rains, floods, and more. Heat waves have been increasing in recent years. The number of intense heat waves have almost tripled between 2011 and 2012. Due to high temperatures, rates of evaporation increased, even in areas where precipitation does not decrease. As soil dries out, a larger proportion of heat goes to heat the soil instead of the evaporating moisture. Opposite of this, heavy downpours are increasing. In the last three to five decades they have increased dramatically. In the northeast, Midwest, and the upper Great Plains, rainfall is more than 30% above the 1901-1960 average. Climate Change is affecting everything!
January 29, 2019 at 6:23 PM
Anonymous said…
I looked more into the affects of climate change, and I found another huge problem climate change brings: more extreme droughts. Droughts in the Southwest and heat waves (periods of abnormally hot weather lasting days to weeks) everywhere are projected to become more intense, and cold waves less intense everywhere. Summer temperatures are projected to continue rising, and a reduction of soil moisture, which exacerbates heat waves, is projected for much of the western and central U.S. in summer. By the end of this century, what have been once-in-20-year extreme heat days (one-day events) are projected to occur every two or three years over most of the nation.
January 30, 2019 at 5:51 PM
Anonymous said…
Your post was very insightful, because I have never really thought about how I am impacted by hurricanes. Since we don’t leave close to the coast, we only hear about the tragedies caused by hurricanes and think we’re not impacted because the physical and tangible damage is far from us. Yet, like you said, due to climate change, the whole world will be impacted, even us, by the rising ocean levels, increased ocean temperatures, melting icecaps, which all contribute to increased hurricanes severity and global environmental damage. It is vital that we take the small and simple steps to limit the negative anthropogenic effects we have on the environment to help decrease climate change and the elevated severity of hurricanes.
January 31, 2019 at 5:54 PM
Anonymous said…
The increasing occurrence and intensity of hurricanes is partly caused by human-charged climate change. While hurricanes occur naturally, human-caused climate change is supercharging them and exacerbating the risk of major damage. Due to human actions, the oceans have absorbed the vast majority of the heat that has built up in our planet’s climate system due to our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If more heat energy is available in the ocean, more water that will evaporate. That moisture rises and converges into the storm, and then much of it precipitates, falling out as rain during hurricanes, making them more charged. This is an important indicator of the destructive effects of human actions and chain reaction caused by these actions. For this reason, it is important that people take steps to limit their effects on the environment to help decrease climate change and chain reactions.
January 31, 2019 at 6:39 PM
Anonymous said…
It was really cool to see the way that the earth functions to correct itself. Upon further research, I found out that the rains for the hurricanes in the first place is to cool down the areas around it through the rainfall and wind that it produces. With this information, it is easy to see why the intensity of these newer hurricanes would increase. The earth is simply trying to reset itself and bring some of the temperatures back to their normal levels. That being said, it isn’t that these natural disasters aren’t without consequence. Not only does the intensity of these storms increase but the frequency of them do as well. This means that there is less time to come up with a solution and less time to recover.
January 31, 2019 at 6:45 PM
Anonymous said…
I wasn’t aware that climate change could have an effect on something like hurricanes. It’s scary to imagine the intensity of hurricanes getting worse and worse as time progresses and climate change gets worse. It’s also hard to imagine experiencing a hurricane worse than Katrina or Harvey. However, if the intensity of hurricanes gets worse as climate change does as well, I fear that might happen one day.
January 31, 2019 at 6:57 PM
Anonymous said…
This post was very eye opening and shocking, I never realized the intensity of the impact climate change had on the production and increase of hurricanes! I think most of us fail to imagine the large scale and dangerous consequences our unsustainable actions can have. I defiantly think our main hope is damage control, as there is no turning back now. If everyone tries their best to incorporate little things like carpooling and overall reducing greenhouse gas output, we could effectively reduce the negative effects of climate change. I did some additional research to comprehend the extent of the impact of climate change and its variance overtime. Heat waves have been increasing in recent years, tripling between 2011 and 2012. As the ocean continues to absorb the anthropogenic activity induced heat, there is an increase of heat energy and more water evaporates. All this rising moisture contributes to the creation of a storm, thus directly impacting the creation of hurricanes.
January 31, 2019 at 10:03 PM
Anonymous said…
While I was aware that hurricanes are costly, I am startled by their cumulative damage. Three out of five of the costliest hurricanes occurred in 2017; this is proof that climate change causes more damaging hurricanes. The solution would, nevertheless, entail efforts to reduce carbon emissions and invest in storm infrastructure. If no pragmatic and smart measures are taken against climate change immediately, the consequences will be fatal. The frequency and severity of hurricanes will exponentially increase. Human lives, infrastructure, and the environment will all be at risk. And those less fortunate will be the worst off, such as citizens from third-world countries like Haiti or Indonesia.
February 1, 2019 at 5:07 PM
Anonymous said…
I agree, I think it is very interesting and important how hurricanes of the past have been studied and compared to the most recent hurricanes. Hurricane Katrina, for example, was one of the deadliest and most memorable hurricanes of our history, and it continues to be a standard that other hurricanes are measured against. Although it seems obvious, I was not aware of the degree of impact that climate change can possess over hurricane development. This presents another reason for effort towards addressing climate change and its implications for Earth’s environment.
February 1, 2019 at 6:15 PM
Anonymous said…
I agree that it is alarming the vast effects climate change is having. Past natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are well-remembered but currently I feel that we have become desensitized to the growing occurrence of hurricanes and other natural disasters. We need to not forget what is causing these natural disasters and not forget. I researched some simple ways we can implement that will help decrease the effects of climate change such as carpooling with others, switch to energy efficient bulbs, eat more organic and meat free meals, divert from fossil fuels, and etc. Action needs to be taken by us as a whole to prevent further damage caused by climate change and damage from natural tests.
February 1, 2019 at 8:23 PM
Anonymous said…
Its scary to think about hurricanes such as Harvey or Katrina getting any worse than they already were. This just shows that action need to be taken. For example, we can reduce emissions by carpooling or switching to renewable energy. These hurricanes are already so bad, we cannot allow these disasters to get worse than they are.
February 1, 2019 at 9:59 PM
Anonymous said…
Prior to reading this, I was knew that climate change had to do with the strengthening of hurricane and how frequent they are becoming, however, your post was still extremely informative. Seeing the trend of the storms becoming more and more frequent and getting stronger scares me but what scares me more is the fact that we humans are contributing to the growth of the storms. Something must be done and it starts with us. We can help by carpooling, eating locally and cutting down our meat consumption can help with reducing carbon emissions.
February 3, 2019 at 7:24 PM
Anonymous said…
Although hurricanes are big issues that have been arising over the past few years, this post was very informative to tell us why and how they are getting stronger everyday due to our actions and habits. I hope that through these kinds of posts, others can learn more about the importance our actions have on our futures and how to prevent such things in the future.
February 4, 2019 at 8:06 AM
Anonymous said…
This post was very alarming and really opened my eyes to the negative effect that climate change can have on hurricanes. I did more research on the topic and found out that hurricanes form due to uneven temperatures in the atmosphere. Because of these temperatures, hurricanes attempt to balance them out and redistribute the heat. Therefore, It makes sense as to why climate change can result in stronger hurricanes. I find it ironic that we, as a population, are affected so much by these hurricanes but we are also responsible for them getting stronger.
February 5, 2019 at 2:58 PM
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