And now here's the weather, the bad news

Climate change worsened the most destructive hurricanes of recent years, including Katrina, Irma and Maria. The findings suggest that enormously destructive storms have already been bolstered by climate change and similar events in the future are on course to be cataclysmic.

This situation is set to worsen under future anticipated warming, however. Researchers found that if little is done to constrain greenhouse gas emissions and the world warms by 3C to 4C this century then hurricane rainfall could increase by a third, while wind speeds would be boosted by as much as 25 knots.

“Climate change has exacerbated rainfall and is set to enhance the wind speed,” said Christina Patricola, who undertook the study with her Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory colleague Michael Wehner.


Jennifer Francis, a hurricane expert at Rutgers University, said: “This study adds exclamation points to the already clear message that we must slow global warming by conserving energy and switching from fossil to renewable fuels while preparing for more extreme weather to come.”

In a world where temperatures were 3C warmer on average, Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in nearly 2,000 deaths when levees breached near New Orleans in 2005, would’ve been even worse, with around 25% more rainfall. Cyclone Yasi, which hit Australia in 2011, would have had around a third more rain, while the deluge during Gafilo, a huge storm that killed more than 300 people in Madagascar in 2004, would have been 40% more intense.

Hurricanes draw their strength from warmth in the upper layers of the ocean, while their rainfall is influenced by the amount of moisture in the atmosphere. Climate change, driven by human activity, is creating more favorable conditions for stronger hurricanes, with recent research finding that storms are intensifying more rapidly than they were 30 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/14/climate-change-hurricanes-study-global-warming