Currently, it is more and more common to observe that hurricanes intensify rapidly and the probability that when one of these phenomena forms will reach greater magnitudes, seems to be increasing, warned a researcher in a remote conference broadcast at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
In a statement issued this Saturday, the institution said that Purdue University researcher Dan Chavas He spoke before academics and students of the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate Change (ICAyCC) of the UNAM, within the cycle of conferences “Current panorama of atmospheric sciences and climate change”.
The specialist in applied mathematics and atmospheric and oceanic sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison recalled that Hurricane Patricia, which made landfall in Mexico in 2015 with winds of 345 km/h, is an example of one that intensified quickly.
“And we’ve seen behavior like this more and more often, maybe there’s more consensus and I think peak intensity is more difficult,” he said.
In addition, he said that it is “complex to say if the storms become stronger”, but they also saw that “a greater number of hurricanes reach higher levels” and that is a “sign”, he pointed out.
Chavas, PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) gave a talk on the use of experimental laboratory models to understand tropical cyclones on Earth, in which he explained that studies with computer models allow knowing and extensively study the behavior of phenomena and simulate their changes.
He recalled that the use of these systems shows their complexity, helps to carry out experiments to change things, as well as to offer climate forecasts, in addition, he said that they also allowed progressive monitoring of cyclones and hurricanes such as Katia, Irma and José in 2017, as well as Sandy (2012) that caused damages of 65,000 million dollars.
The researcher specified that a significant number of scientists in the world are trying to answer questions regarding “how the planet warms and what to expect in terms of speed and minimum pressure, so it is hoped that by using computational models it will be better understood what is what happens.”
Chavas, a specialist in the study of tropical cyclones, severe weather, risk analysis and modeling, and their social impacts, added that in order to know what is happening, “one of the data that is expected to be known is the temperature of the sea, important information for identify the maximum intensity potential”.
He said that recent studies carried out by his team showed that the intensity of cyclones has been affected by climate change, but the Earth is probably at a point where rainfall increases and its intensity may be greater, as well as its frequency.
