“Hurricane Laura has been devastated and caused flash floods in Louisiana with Hurricane Marco. Both hurricanes passed over the Caribbean earlier this week, causing landslides in Jamaica and severely hitting Haiti and the Dominican Republic, ”Emily Vosper, a leading research author and research student at Bristol University’s School of Computer Science, told IFLScience.
The strength of the storm is partially unprecedented and has already become one of the strongest storms to hit this part of the world. Hurricane Laura is currently wreaking havoc on the mainland United States and the northern Caribbean. However, a new study shows that the activity of this type of destructive hurricane is likely to increase if the planet fails to address the growing climate crisis.
“The results of this study indicate that the incidence of extreme hurricane rainfall affecting the Caribbean region will become more likely with global warming. In warmer worlds, cyclones such as Laura and Marco may have become the norm, bringing more rainfall to the region where they hit,” she added.
It is known that climate change has already contributed to the increase in the activity of Atlantic hurricanes in recent decades, but new research shows that if the world does not meet some targets, severe hurricanes in the Caribbean could be five times more than the Paris Agreement.
Their analysis focuses on the Caribbean region, taking into account current landscapes to determine the scale and intensity of hurricanes. Researchers led by the University of Bristol in the UK simulated thousands of hurricanes under three climatic conditions: current conditions, with 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and 2 degrees Celsius above pre-temperatures, the journal of Environmental Research reported Industry level.
The future is much more optimistic under a 1.5-degree centigrade warm world. Under these circumstances, devastating hurricanes in the eastern regions of the Caribbean will probably halve. The results show that the “100-year storm” that will affect the Bahamas will probably be 4.5 times under the Paris Agreement scene at 2 degrees Celsius compared to the current time. Similarly, an event on the same scale as Hurricane Maria in 2017 will be more than twice as likely as the 2-degree centigrade warm world, occurring once every 43 years.
In 2018, a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius is not enough and could still cause catastrophic, irreversible damage to our ecosystem. Severe hurricanes will not only be a cause for concern if the world is 2 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels. In addition to the increased risk of drought and severe heatwave, a plus-2 degree Celsius world would also see a huge loss of biodiversity, with 18 percent of insects, 16 percent of trees, and 6 percent of vertebrates.
