This past hurricane season was a pretty nasty one. With 21 storms from June 1 to November 30, for the second year in a row the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ran out of names on their official list and had to swap over to a backup. Eight hurricanes hit the United States, and one—Ida—killed at least 82 people and caused an estimated $60 billion in damage as it churned its way from Louisiana to New Jersey, according to federal officials.
But unless things change in a big way, the future will be even worse. In a warmer climate, hurricanes will speed toward the Northeast coast more quickly and then slow down once they arrive, causing more damage and floods in vulnerable coastal communities. In a study published in November in the journal Earth’s Future, a team from three universities examined storm tracking data from the past 100 years and used it in a global climate model that takes into account changes in environmental conditions caused by heat-trapping greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.
The researchers focused on the Northeast US, which has the largest population centers living along the coast. “We found that storms are forming a little more north and west in the Atlantic, moving faster toward the Southeast coast and traveling their slowest along the East Coast,” says lead author Andra Garner, an assistant professor of environmental science at Rowan University in New Jersey. “It was a surprising finding.”
Read more at Wired
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