Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
10
INTENSIFICATION OF HURRICANES
Nothing illustrates the Climate Casino better than the impact of warm-
ing on tropical storms. When they begin to form, we don't know how
intense they will become, where they will hit, and how much damage
they will cause. A major question is how much global warming will in-
tensify and redistribute hurricanes over the coming decades—and how
much damage these changes will cause.
You are unlikely to see a video on the rising sea because the rise is
imperceptible. In most places, tidal changes over a few hours are larger
than sea-level rise over the next century. By contrast, hurricanes are
swift, localized, dramatic events, tearing through cities and burying
houses under a wall of water. There are TV shows about “hurricane track-
ers,” and perhaps there may soon be a “Hurricane Channel,” but you are
unlikely ever to see the “Sea-Level Rise Channel,” even with 10,000
stations.
I have witnessed hurricane after hurricane near my home. A few
people remember the Great New England Hurricane of 1938. An entire
community on Napatree Point in southwest Rhode Island was wiped
off the face of the earth as the storm washed over the low-lying spit of
land. Superstorm Sandy in 2012 struck the New York area and caused
at least $75 billion of damages. Hurricanes are a particularly thorny
problem because they are an unmanageable system that is clearly af-
fected by global warming. Hurricanes differ from sea-level rise and
ocean acidifi cation in being extremely local and highly differentiated in
impact.
 
 
 
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