Coastal Storms | Extreme Weather
February 26, 2024
Hurricanes are intensifying more rapidly – and the most vulnerable communities are hit hardest – the Guardian
Excerpt:
Hurricanes are more frequently escalating quickly, and the places they destroy may be those disadvantaged by racist housing policy
Chelle Walton remembers how the water rushed into her home, the night Hurricane Ian made landfall. The 68-year-old found herself chin-deep in water, scrambling to grab essentials like her husband’s medication. “Strangely enough, things float in saltwater,” Walton said.
Walton and her husband Rob had decided to shelter in place, despite repeated evacuation notices.
“You make all of your decisions based on past storms,” said Walton. “It turned out to be a bad decision.”
Walton has lived through four major hurricanes since she moved to Sanibel, a barrier island off the Florida coast in 1981. If she could go back, she says she would have left the day before landfall. “We will never stay again,” Walton said.
Hurricane Ian, a devastating category 5 storm that led to 149 deaths across the state of Florida, was one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever strike the US. It demolished homes and businesses and left more than 2 million without power. Part of its devastation stemmed from how quickly it progressed; as the storm approached the US, Ian underwent a dramatic and difficult-to-predict escalation in a short amount of time, a phenomenon known as rapid intensification. With climate crisis warming the oceans at a record pace, scientists say these types of storms are occurring more frequently. And unless coastal communities like Sanibel invest in robust disaster preparedness, residents may continue to find themselves blindsided by these extreme weather events…
“It’s one of the most important challenges facing our field right now,” said Alex DesRosiers, a researcher at Colorado State University specializing in intensity change. Some recent storms have seen wind speeds increase by 60mph (96.6km/h) in a day. “That’s the difference between a category 2 and a category 5,” DesRosiers said. One such example is Hurricane Michael. In 2018, this devastating storm jumped from a category 2 to category 5 the day before making landfall in Florida…
The communities likely to be hardest hit by rapid intensification may also be historically disadvantaged by decades of racist housing policy. In the 1930s, the US government created a series of maps which showed where Black people, immigrants, and other minority groups lived, deeming these “redlined” areas as risky investments. These discriminatory practices ensured that both public and private entities like banks and insurance companies systematically denied housing or financing of mortgages to Black families and other households of color.
“What that meant is that those families disproportionately ended up in substandard housing and high flood-risk areas,” said Hannah Perls, a senior staff attorney with the Harvard environmental and energy law program.
While outlawed with the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, its legacy persists and is felt in communities of color to this day.
“When a disaster comes along, either their house is not built to stand up to that disaster or they’re in areas that are getting heavier winds, flooding and impacts,” Perls said. The disproportionate impact of extreme weather on these vulnerable communities also continues after the storm, hindering recovery efforts. “There’s a legacy of discrimination, still, in the way that homes are assessed in terms of their value or people’s ability to access insurance…”
More on Coastal Storms | Extreme Weather . . .
Scientists warn that a crucial ocean current could collapse, altering global weather – the Los Angeles Times
Scientists warn that a crucial ocean current could collapse, altering global weather…The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, is a system of ocean currents that circulate water in the Atlantic Ocean like a conveyor belt, helping to redistribute heat and regulate global and regional climates. New research, however, warns that the AMOC is weakening under a warming climate, and could potentially suffer a dangerous and abrupt collapse with worldwide consequences…
Atmospheric river storms are getting stronger, and deadlier. The race to understand them is on – the Guardian
As the climate crisis supercharges storms over the Pacific, scientists are creating tools that can measure them from the inside..
Category 6-level hurricanes are already here, a new study says – Grist Magazine
In the real world, Category 5 is synonymous with the biggest and baddest storms. But some U.S. scientists are making the case that it no longer captures the intensity of recent hurricanes. A paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences lays out a framework for extending the current hurricane-rating system…with a new category for storms that have winds topping 192 miles per hour. According to the study, the world has already seen storms that would qualify as Category 6s…
Here’s How the Next Two Atmospheric Rivers Will Affect California – the New York Times
A “Pineapple Express” hitting California through Thursday will set the stage for another week of unsettled weather across the state…
Record-setting storm wallops East Coast with flooding, high winds – the Washington Post
A historically intense December coastal storm is blasting the Northeast on Monday after unleashing heavy rainfall, coastal flooding and high winds from Florida to the Mid-Atlantic. More than 700,000 customers had no power midday Monday as gusts surpassed 60 mph in many locations in eastern New England…
Earth Just Had the Hottest 12-Month Span in Recorded History – Scientific American
As this past October came to a close, it marked the hottest 12-month period ever recorded, a new analysis finds. This stark milestone is the latest in a string of superlatives to emerge this year that show how much carbon pollution has warmed the planet—and how that trend is accelerating. It also comes just weeks before international negotiators are set to meet and hash out issues around achieving the Paris climate accord’s fundamental goal: limiting global warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial temperatures…
Climate crisis costing $16m an hour in extreme weather damage, study estimates – the Guardian
The damage caused by the climate crisis through extreme weather has cost $16m (£13m) an hour for the past 20 years, according to a new estimate.
Storms, floods, heatwaves and droughts have taken many lives and destroyed swathes of property in recent decades, with global heating making the events more frequent and intense. The study is the first to calculate a global figure for the increased costs directly attributable to human-caused global heating…
September shattered global heat record — and by a record margin – the Washington Post
Temperatures around the world last month were at levels closer to normal for July according to separate data analyses by European and Japanese climate scientists.
September’s average temperature was nearly 1 degree Celsius (1.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above 1991-2020 levels — or about 1.7 to 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.1 to 3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal from before industrialization and the widespread use of fossil fuels…
For Sanibel, the Recovery from Hurricane Ian Will Be Years in the Making – Inside Climate News
Few images of Hurricane Ian’s destruction in Florida a year ago this week were more indelible than those of the swamped causeway here, the only link between the mainland and barrier island where this small beach community is located…