Watch here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DA4eKNLOSDH/
It’s terrible watching how these communities have been devastated by these storms, and I’m worried about how Hurricane Milton will affect my hometown in Pinellas County.
With that said, I think it’s important to point out that these major storms aren’t coming out of nowhere. They’re a result of decades of anthropogenic (that means human-caused) climate change from consuming fossil fuels and polluting our planet. We’re only now starting to see some of the disastrous effects of climate change, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Donate to help victims of hurricane Helene
- North Carolina Government/United Way: https://pay.payitgov.com/ncdonations
- Feeding America: https://give.feedingamerica.org/a/hurricane-helene
- Red Cross: https://www.redcross.org/donate/donation.html/
Transcript
Hurricane Helene was one of the most devastating and deadly hurricanes in recent years, and between that and other storms like Harvey in 2017, I think it’s time we talk about how anthropogenic climate change intensifies natural disasters.
We know that greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide area increasing the global temperature (IPCC, 2018), but there’s so much more than just “global warming”
Hurricanes like these are not getting more frequent, but they are getting more intense. Category 3-5 hurricanes have gotten 5% more common per decade for the last 40 years (Kossin et al., 2020)
There’s a few reasons why, and most of it comes back to warming oceans. Hurricanes are basically thermodynamic engines. In simple terms, they get their energy from the difference in temperature. Air that’s way high in the atmosphere is really cold, so the hotter the air at the bottom gets, the larger that difference and the more “fuel” the storm has to grow.
That’s a big part of why Helene was so intense — the Gulf of Mexico was at record temps (McNuldy, 2024), so the storm intensified far more rapidly than usual as it came across.
With higher temperatures, more ocean water evaporates, and warmer air can hold more moisture. Together, those lead to more extreme rain and storms (Clarke, 2022).
As a general trend, we’re seeing high-intensity storms drift further from the equator as the tropical zone expands towards the poles (Knutson, 2021). That might help explain why an area as far north as North Carolina got hit so hard by Helene.
On top of that, rising sea levels contribute to increased flooding like what we saw wipe out communities in Florida (Knutson, 2021).
The climate crisis has a cost. The death toll from Helene alone is already at 220 at the time of writing (Associated Press, 2024), and if we don’t make radical, global change to climate policy, storms like this are only going to keep getting more common.
Check out beanstem.org to learn more and to see how to donate to Helene relief funds.
See also
I highly recommend this article from the Tampa Bay Times that tells the heartbreaking stories just a few of the people who didn’t survive Helene. Be warned, it is a heavy and emotional read.
References
- Figure SPM.1: IPCC, 2018
- Global increase in major tropical cyclone exceedance probability over the past four decades: Kossin et al., 2020
- Ocean Heat Content: Brian McNoldy, University of Miami, 2024
- Climate change is probably increasing the intensity of tropical cyclones: Knutson, 2021
- Sheriff says rescuers ‘will not rest’ as search for Helene’s victims drags into second week: Associated Press
- Extreme weather impacts of climate change: an attribution perspective: Clarke, 2022
- My friend with a PhD in atmospheric science: Michael McClellan