The most intense tropical cyclones are expected to be at least twice as frequent by 2050

Katrina, Haiyan, Sandy, Dorian, Maria… Many hurricanes and hurricanes have unfortunately become famous due to the scenes of devastation they caused, causing thousands of deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in losses. These extreme phenomena, which cause the most damage of all climatic disasters, are set to become more frequent. according to one Study published on Wednesday, April 27th at science progressOn average, human-caused climate change will more than double the likelihood of the deadliest tropical cyclones occurring in most parts of the world by 2050, putting many regions of the world at risk.

Today, an average of 80-100 tropical storms and cyclones form in the world each year, mainly in the Northwest Pacific, but also in the southern Indian Ocean, the northeast Pacific and the North Atlantic. These eddies are generated when the sea surface temperature is high (generally above 26°C), the atmosphere is unstable and the winds are relatively uniform.

stronger wind

According to the international team of researchers responsible for this study, the number of hurricanes should decrease slightly on a global scale in the coming decades, but their intensity will increase, with maximum wind speeds that can increase by up to 24% on average in different basins. Under investigation: the rise in surface water temperature associated with climate change, which allows hurricanes to draw more energy to develop.

So that more intense hurricanes – category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, i.e. maximum winds of more than 178 km/h – will be more frequent, in absolute and proportional terms, in nearly all ocean basins due to climate change, while less powerful systems, such as storms, will be Tropical (with winds between 64 and 118 km/h), less numerous.

The study points to two exceptions: the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, which will record the same number of severe cyclones, and the Bay of Bengal, which, on the contrary, will see a decrease in these more violent phenomena. “Our models predict that the area where cyclones form will move toward India and Sri Lanka, so they will make landfall faster and have less time to gain intensity in the ocean,” Explains Nadia Blumendahl, a researcher at the Institute of Environmental Studies at the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands) and first author of the study.

You have 46.6% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.