A historic 120-year-old data set is allowing researchers to confirm what data modeling systems have been predicting about climate change: Climate change is increasing precipitation events like hurricanes, tropical storms and floods.
Researchers analyzed a continuous record kept since 1898 of tropical cyclone landfalls and rainfall associated with Coastal North Carolina storms. They found that six of the seven highest precipitation events in that record have occurred within the last 20 years, according to the study.
“North Carolina has one of the highest impact zones of tropical cyclones in the world, and we have these carefully kept records that shows us that the last 20 years of precipitation events have been off the charts,” said Hans Paerl, Kenan Professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences.
Read more at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Image: NASA/USGS Landsat satellite images of coastal North Carolina before and after the passage of Hurricane Florence on Sept. 15, 2018. CREDIT: Paerl, Hall, Hounshell, Luettich, Rossignol, Osburn and Bales, 2019.