OAN’s Elizabeth Bolbelding
11:35am – Tuesday, February 6, 2024
Scientists claim the storm’s strength has reached unprecedented levels on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures hurricane wind speed. Researchers are now beginning to question its magnitude and are calling for new, higher risk thresholds to be set for the deadliest storms.
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According to recent studies, the storm is becoming so strong that it will soon add a “Category 6” intensity level. Saffir Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
The researchers were considering the possibility of scaling up to include category 6, arguing that the classification could help better warn people of the risks.
According to a study published Monday, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists claim that hurricanes around the world are becoming much more powerful due to “rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures.” Additionally, “Category 5 for traditional wind meters underestimates the risk.”
of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said a Category 5 hurricane could cause “catastrophic” damage and “complete roof failure of many residential and industrial buildings,” as well as extended power outages. Category 1-5 hurricanes can reach wind speeds of 156 mph or more.
Robert Simpson, former director of the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, said winds that strong would “cause severe burst damage no matter how well designed,” which is why the scale ends at Category 5. He said this in a 1999 interview.
Michael Wenner, lead author of the recent study and a climate scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, issued a statement regarding the purported increase in storm intensity.
“As a cautious scientist, you don’t want to cry wolf,” Wehner says.
But Wenner and co-author Jim Kossin, a science advisor at the First Street Foundation and a former federal scientist, say their analysis of the climate change signature from the strongest cyclones on record shows that wolves are here. ”.
“Since 2013, we’ve found that five storms have exceeded this hypothetical Category 6, and they all turned out to be recent,” Wehner told reporters.
Wenner and Kossin argued that the “significant increase” in temperatures caused by “greenhouse gas emissions” has allowed the most powerful tropical cyclones to retain more energy.
The authors claim that more cyclones are taking advantage of this to increase wind speed and strength, and their data shows that as global temperatures rise rapidly, this phenomenon will occur more frequently. He claimed that it shows that.
“Our motivation here was to draw a connection between climate change, the warming of the atmosphere and the earth due to the burning of fossil fuels, and hurricanes and tropical cyclones,” Wehner said, adding that he and Kosin Climate scientists, he added, consider themselves “relatively conservative.” ”
Kossin told reporters that their main goal is to “inform a broader discussion about how to better communicate risks in a warming world.”
Kossin went on to say that their findings highlight the fact that as storms intensify beyond the 157 mph threshold for Category 5 cyclones, the associated risks increase, leading to risk underestimation. He claimed that there was.
As a result, the study’s researchers claimed to have found that the likelihood of such storms occurring has more than doubled in intensity since 1979. They said the area of greatest concern for the increased risk of these storms is the “Gulf Coast.” Mexico, the Philippines, the Southeast Asian region, and Australia. ”
“We are simply pointing out that climate change is making it increasingly inadequate as a measure of risk based on wind alone,” Kossin concluded.
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