More than 50 people have been killed following severe thunderstorms and tornadoes ravaged the southern United States, Midwest and mid-Atlantic in the past two weeks, according to the website. AXIOSwho said a new wave of tornadoes is expected on Tuesday.
At least 32 deaths have been confirmed during the recent storms that have hit – with varying severity Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Tennessee, New Jersey and Arkansas – as President Biden declared a “major state of disaster” to provide federal aid to the affected states.
The National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC) warned that there is an “increased risk” that severe thunderstorms will develop Tuesday from Illinois south into Arkansas.
Climate role
Victor Jenseni, a professor of meteorology at Northern Illinois University, told Axios that while research on the role of human-caused climate change in altering hurricane characteristics is still recent, records dating back more than 70 years indicate a shift of hurricanes from regions Traditional Midwest known as “Hurricane Alley”.
“This is very important for the United States as hurricanes quickly strike higher-density areas,” Genseni said.
And the site quotes Jeff Trapp, chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois, as saying that the data indicates that climate change is already changing one of the main components in the formation of severe thunderstorms, an equation known as “CAPE” or (convective available potential energy).
This measure helps determine how much atmospheric energy thunderstorms can dump following they collide with a cold front.
The site says that studies indicate that while some components of severe thunderstorms, such as moisture and atmospheric instability, are likely to increase as the climate warms, others may do the opposite.
Climate change is expected to reduce the amount of wind available to severe thunderstorms, potentially depriving them of a key component of tornado formation.
Hurricane season has turned
“The frequency of hurricane activity in the United States is decreasing, but the peak of its occurrence has shifted to early spring,” Trapp told the site.
The report concludes, “It is not yet possible to link the severity or occurrence of an individual hurricane to climate change, but the overall environment in which it occurs is already changing due to increased amounts of greenhouse gases.”
