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Did you think a Category 5 would be as bad as a hurricane can get? think again.
As Hurricane Melissa has entered the Atlantic After devastating Jamaica and Cuba, some scientists say Age of Category 6 hurricanes Now it’s upon us.
Experts say hurricanes caused by human-caused climate change are stronger, more intense and move faster than ever before, bringing destructive winds that blow off roofs and flood coastal communities with rapidly rising sea water that may persist for days even after the immediate danger has passed.
Storms already surpassing wind-driven highs Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scalewhich measures the amount of damage expected, limiting a “catastrophic” maximum sustained wind speed of 157 mph. five tropical cyclones If such a classification existed, storms formed since 2013 would have been considered Category 6 hurricanes.
Now, experts believe the 5 scale will no longer be able to meet this moment and this week’s Hurricane Melissa is reinforcing that belief.
Category 5 hurricane – Jamaica’s worst on record – draws closer category 6 hurricaneDr. Michael Mann, climatologist and President’s Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, said: Independent.
It has been proposed that the maximum sustained winds in such a storm would be 192 mph And Category 5 winds can cause far more damage than structures designed to withstand.
“I wouldn’t rule out that in post-season analysis, wind projections have been upgraded, possibly breaking the ‘Cat 6’ cut-off), he said in an email), while agreeing that these supercharged storms are the new normal and we need to rethink how they are classified moving forward.
“As long as we are using wind-based metrics, it makes no sense (mathematically, or fiscally and sociologically) to artificially limit the scale to more than 5,” he said.
Dr. Katherine Hayhoe, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said adding Category 6 to the 2010 Saffir-Simpson scale would recognize the increasingly worrying impacts of climate change on hurricanes, including a greater risk of damage from worse storms. Independent,
He believes the scale may also need to be “completely reworked” to take into account rainfall, which accounts for most of the storm-related economic impacts.
Hayhoe said, “The argument about whether or not to add Category 6 to the Saffir-Simpson scale really ignores the forest for the trees because we are now seeing that flood damage is arguably not as big of an issue.”
However, not all scientists agree that something needs to be added to the scale – or even feel strongly about it.
“I don’t think we need Category 6. Deportation for weeks or months is as bad as it gets with a hurricane!” Colorado State University meteorologist Dr. Phil Klotzbach said Independent In an email.
“The Saffir-Simpson scale has been around for decades,” said Dr. Zachary Handlos, director of the atmospheric and oceanic sciences graduate degree program at Georgia Tech University. WCNC“If we change it, it becomes difficult to compare new storms to old storms unless we reanalyze past data. We will move toward a target that defines a ‘major’ hurricane.”
“I don’t feel strongly either way,” meteorologist Jeff Berardelli wrote in an article. Post On X. “But I think if we continue to see these ‘league of our own stormtroopers’ we need a way to separate the ‘men from the boys,’ if you will.”
What this might look like remains uncertain, but the reality is that climate change is making extreme storms like Melissa more likely, with major threats to humanity.
Melissa was one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded Tied up For Most powerful hurricane for wind speed and pressure In the North Atlantic.
a fresh Study Imperial College London showed that Melissa was four times more likely than human-induced climate change, increasing its wind speed At a speed of 11 miles per hour.
Rising ocean temperatures are part of what makes hurricane winds stronger, Daniel GilfordClimate Central meteorologist and atmospheric scientist told Independent,
“In the case of Melissa, we found that the additional warming of the ocean … increased Melissa’s intensity by 10 mph, pushing it to 185 mph. [maximum sustained winds],” he explained.
“So, we’re kind of in this regime where these storms are ones that we think are at the top of our scale when it comes to intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale.”
And, unless the atmosphere-warming greenhouse gas emissions largely produced by the fossil fuel industry are curbed, these threats will continue to worsen.
“We’re stuck in the world we have right now. We’re stuck in the climate increase we’ve experienced – about 1.3 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial era [levels]“We’re going to stick with the same temperatures throughout our lifetime,” Guilford said. So, these storms are going to become more intense during our lifetime.”
“But we can make things worse in the future by taking urgent action now to cut our climate emissions,” he said.