Research revealed that the climate crisis enhanced the rains and winds of Hurricane Milton

• The study was released by a team of climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network | Photo: EFE

The climate crisis – a phenomenon that the governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, eliminated from his priorities this year – increased the strength of Hurricane Milton‘s winds by 10% and, consequently, made it possible for it to make landfall in the United States. as a category 3 cyclone, instead of 2.

It also increased Milton’s rainfall by between 20 and 30%, according to research released on Friday, October 11, by a team of climate scientists from the World Weather Attribution (WWA) network.

This is a quick analysis of the link between global warming and extreme weather events such as Milton and Helene, who have caused death and destruction in the United States over the past two weeks.

Future climate scenarios

The research details that one-day heavy rainfall events like the one associated with Milton are 20% to 30% more intense and about twice as likely in the current climate, i.e. “1.3 degrees Celsius warmer than they would have been without human-induced climate change.”

A global warming that has doubled, according to WWA, the probability of extreme phenomena similar to that of Hurricane Milton.

Photo: EFE/Octavio Guzmán

These results, the researchers specify, are based on meteorological observation data and do not include climate models, although the results are compatible with studies of other hurricanes in the area and show a “similar increase in the intensity of cyclones of between 10%. and 50%” due to the climate crisis.

“We are convinced that the changes in Milton’s heavy rainfall, which has already dissipated in the Atlantic, are attributable to human-caused climate change,” said WWA, an international scientific collaboration that conducts rapid climate attribution studies.

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The IRIS model used by WWA to investigate the intensity of Milton’s winds showed that in a climate 1.3 degrees Celsius lower, “the maximum speeds” of the wind of systems similar to Milton “are stronger than in a world without climate change ”.

The climate crisis in Florida is a matter of “green fanatics”

Faced with this consensus of the international scientists of the WWA, the governor of Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis, has always been opposed.

Last May he signed a law by which the climate crisis ceased to be one of the state’s great priorities, in rejection of the “agenda of the radical green fanatics,” he noted at the time.

The measure left in the background the reality of the state’s exposure to rising sea levels, the extreme temperatures recorded in 2023, in addition to serious flooding and severe weather events.

The legislation eliminated most mentions of the climate crisis in state law and reversed many of the policies that were introduced during the administration of a previous governor, Democrat Charlie Crist (2007-2011).

Milton, which made landfall on Wednesday, October 9, on the central west coast of Florida, formed in the Gulf of Mexico and intensified over the course of just two days to become a fearsome Category 5 hurricane, that is, from maximum sustained winds of 252 kilometers per hour or more.

Photo: EFE/Octavio Guzmán

Milton has claimed the lives of at least 16 people and left a path of destruction as it passes through Florida, which also recorded deadly tornadoes, serious flooding and where still this Friday 2.8 million users remain without power.

WWA’s analysis comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern United States, a weather phenomenon also driven by climate change, according to scientists.

With information from EFE

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