Greenfield Recorder – My Turn: Why Hurricanes Are Getting Stronger

We know that climate change is getting worse. We knew we would see more severe impacts of climate change in the United States. However, the wind, rain, flooding, damage and loss of life caused by Hurricane Helen, followed less than two weeks later by Hurricane Milton, still took many of us by surprise. Somehow this was more than we were prepared for, even if we were only known through the media.

Helen, with winds exceeding 140 mph, is considered one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever hit Milton, America, another monster storm that apparently wasn’t as strong as it could have been, but still produced about 40 tornado that caused widespread destruction and left more than 4 million people without power.

The numbers associated with these storms can be staggering. I decided to try to remember just one number associated with Hurricane Helen: the number 30 and two connections to it. Some areas near Asheville in western North Carolina appear to have received more than 30 inches of rain over several days. Can you imagine?

One Asheville area river crested more than 30 feet above normal levels. Pick any river you know, even a small one, and imagine that the water is 30 feet above the normal surface of the water. Obviously, in this mountainous area the water had nowhere to go. Down some gorges it came down like a 30-foot wall of water.

Those of us who live in western Massachusetts and were not in the path of these hurricanes face the challenge of deciding how much attention we should pay to this type of disturbing news (about hurricanes, war, elections, or climate change). Paying some attention to this is part of being fully human – showing empathy and solidarity with those who are suffering. Having at least some information about this may be necessary to make informed decisions.

On the other hand, paying too much attention to such news can be debilitating, draining our energy for action and making it difficult to focus on other issues that matter to us. I strongly encourage us to take a disciplined approach to this issue by limiting our news consumption and resisting the persistent attempts of much of the media to keep us scared, fascinated and, quite frankly, addicted.

I think it is helpful to talk and listen to others when we are faced with emotional news. I’m trying to find some stories of compassion and courage in the face of disaster that I can share with people—like the volunteer at the storm shelter who used an AED machine—a defibrillator—for the first time to save a woman. life waiting for an overloaded ambulance crew.

A church group delivered supplies to a city cut off by floodwaters and broken roads. They drove as far as they could, walking the final distance and delivering baby food to a family with a crying, hungry child. Elsewhere, volunteers cleared downed trees that blocked roads and staffed emergency shelters and food kitchens. Countless small acts of kindness were performed: people shared food, clothing and hugs to help each other survive the disaster.

I often look for ways to raise awareness about climate change. So, I also shared something I read that describes four ways climate change is making hurricanes more powerful. Yale Climate Connections explains that climate change is now increasing the destructive speed of hurricanes: “Hurricanes are heat engines that take thermal energy from the ocean and convert it into kinetic energy from their winds.” Climate change has made the oceans hotter.

Secondly, global warming increases the amount of hurricane precipitation. Warming causes more ocean water to evaporate into the air, increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere and causing a sharp increase in the amount of precipitation that falls during hurricanes. Third, global warming is causing severe hurricanes to intensify much faster than before. Hurricane Helen’s wind speeds increased more than 40 mph in the 24 hours before landfall. Such intensification “could catch forecasters and the public by surprise, risking inadequate evacuation efforts and greater casualties.”

Fourth, rising sea levels due to climate change increase damage from storm surges. Hurricane Helen set all-time flood records at half of the tidal gauges along Florida’s west coast. In a nutshell, again from Yale Climate Communications: “Climate change is making the strongest hurricanes stronger, increasing rainfall, increasing storm surge damage from rising sea levels, and increasing the likelihood of rapid intensification events.”

There’s not much we can do about hurricanes in the short term, but we can do a lot to get more and more people to demand government action on climate change. Let’s continue to talk about this with our neighbors and friends.

Russ Vernon-Jones of Amherst is a member of the Climate Action Now (CAN) Steering Committee. The opinions expressed here are his own. He regularly blogs about climate justice at russvernonjones.org and can be reached there.