The world is on average 1.1-1.3°C hotter than it was before the Industrial Revolution. Since then there has been no increase in the number of tropical cyclones. But they are becoming stronger, slower, wetter and wilder
on September 28th. It is thought to be tied as the fifth-strongest recorded hurricane to have made landfall on the contiguous United States, with winds approaching 150mph . It left Cuba in darkness after knocking out its power grid; now some 2m Floridians are without power. Two people died in Cuba; casualties in Florida are as yet unconfirmed.
Tropical cyclones are fuelled by the temperature of the waters across which they form and move. More than 90% of the extra heat within the climate system is sucked up by the oceans, the average surface temperatures of which are around 0.8°C above the 20th-century average. Between 1980 and 2017 the seas absorbed more than three times the amount of energy contained in the whole world’s fossil-fuel reserve. That extra power allows storms to intensify more quickly.
Climate change also appears to be influencing the paths hurricanes take across land. The speed and direction of storms are steered by airflows in various parts of the atmosphere, which seem to be growing more sluggish as global temperatures rise . That makes it more likely that hurricanes move slowly or hover over one location, increasing their capacity for destruction.
Climate change is also causing sea levels to rise, as ice caps and glaciers melt and because water expands as it warms. This increases another threat posed by hurricanes, which thrust seawater towards the shore as they move in. Higher seas mean that surges travel farther inland, reaching more people and buildings. Differences in gravity and currents mean that the extra water in the oceans is not equally distributed across all coastlines.
All these factors combine to make hurricanes more damaging to property and livelihoods. . The total cost of weather and climate disasters in America—to which storms are the largest contributor—in the past five years was $788bn, about one-third of the total for 1980-2022 . But climate change is not entirely to blame. So too is the propensity to build on vulnerable stretches of coastline. Between 2010 and 2020by nearly 15%, double America’s national rate.
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