If a conventional hurricane is already a disaster in its own right, a Princeton University study has found that they could occur in the coming decades. hurricanes sequentially or in chains in many areas. Studies have found that Chains or succession of devastating hurricanes and tropical storms can occur due to sea level rise and climate change. In an article published in the journal Nature Climate ChangeResearchers confirm that this double effect exists in some areas, such as the Gulf of Mexico coast. can occur up to once every three years.
“Sea level rise and climate change make successive damaging hurricanes more likely as the century progresses,” said Dazhi Xi, postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the paper. “Extremely rare current phenomenon, it will happen much more often” amount.
Researchers led by Ning Lin, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University, first asked questions about the increasing frequency of successive hurricanes following a particularly devastating hurricane season in 2017. That summer, Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, followed by Irma in the South. Florida and Maria in Puerto Rico.
The emergency planning challenges posed by the three major hurricanes have led researchers to wonder whether large numbers of devastating storms could more easily occur due to climate change, and what steps can be taken to prevent them. In late summer 2021, Hurricane Ida struck Louisiana, followed by Tropical Storm Nicholas, which made landfall in Texas as a hurricane shortly thereafter.
“Increasing trend in recent years”
The researchers said their study showed that: Sequential storms have become more common on the East Coast and Gulf Coast, but they remain relatively rare.
“Consecutive tornado risks are already occurring, so we thought these should be looked into,” Lin said. “There has been an increasing trend in recent years.”
The researchers conducted computer simulations To determine the change in the probability of multiple devastating storms hitting the same region in as little as 15 days during this century. They analyzed two scenarios: one with moderate carbon emissions and another with higher emissions. In both cases, the probability of successive devastating storms increased significantly.
There is a general scientific consensus that climate change will increase the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes over the next century. However, the researchers point out that there is some uncertainty about whether the number of storms will increase, decrease or stay the same during that period. The model used by Lin’s team showed an increase in the number of storms, but the other models did not. However, Lin’s team discovered this. Even without an increase in overall storm frequency, the increase in intensity will make East Coast and Gulf Coast regions much more likely to experience successive storms.
“The rate of storms that can affect communities is increasing,” Lin says. “The frequency of storms is not as important as the increasing number of storms that could become dangerous.”
The increase in danger is mainly due to two factors: rising sea levels and increased precipitation due to climate change. Worldwide sea level rise is occurring with climate change, but The Atlantic coast is aggravated by geography. As sea level rises, storm surges become a greater threat to coastal communities as the groundwater level is higher. Historically, a storm surge 3 meters above a normal water level does less damage to roads than the same storm wave above a 0.5 meter raised water level. At the same time, storms get stronger, and an increase in average air temperature causes storms to carry more water. This means that precipitation and flooding from storms may increase.
The combination of both factors means: Storms undetected in the past will become threats, especially when there are several. For example, when Tropical Storm Nicholas struck Louisiana in 2021, it was relatively weak, but the storm caused more problems than expected because the state was still reeling from the devastation associated with Hurricane Ida.
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