How the climate crisis affects hurricanes

Last month the conditions in Florida, USA, were quite bad as Hurricane Helene strengthened, and it was one of the hurricanes they were worse in the last years.  According to two studies that came out this week, storms are becoming more intense and more frequent because of the climate crisis and that's not a surprise at all - heating the planet humans are puting more and more energy into the sea, oceans and the atmosphere and that's making the atmosphere more wet and more unstable.

The Guardian approached the subject: the huge amount of rainfall unleashed on Florida by Hurricane Milton was made 20-30% more intense and about as twice as likely due to human-caused changes to today’s climate, according to the World Weather Attribution, a multinational consortium of scientists.

Hurricane Milton’s wind speeds were also stronger, by about 10%, and that was due to global heating, the analysis found. The findings are in line with another attribution study released by the same group this week, which found that Hurricane Helene’s strength was made twice as likely due to the climate crisis.

“It’s like there was a powder keg, waiting for a spark,” Brian McNoldy, a Florida-based climate scientist, told the Guardian shortly before Milton hit the state. “Now we have that spark. Milton is a remarkable storm, it’s exceptional in all history in terms of its intensification rate.”