🔥 Brace yourselves! A new study just dropped, and it's spilling some serious tea on Hurricane Helene. 🌪️ According to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group, climate change cranked up Helene's rain and winds by a whopping 10%! 😱
You might be thinking, \"10%? Is that a big deal?\" Well, climate scientist Friederike Otto says that even a small bump like that can lead to major damage. \"That small change in the hazard really leads to big change in impacts and damage,\" she explained.
But wait, there's more! The study also found that our reliance on fossil fuels 🌍⛽ (looking at you, coal and oil) has made hurricanes like Helene 2.5 times more likely to hit us. Back in the day, storms this fierce rolled in once every 130 years. Now? We're looking at every 53 years on average. 😬
The researchers weren't just guessing—they dove deep into the nitty-gritty of Helene, checking out precipitation levels, wind speeds, and even the Gulf of Mexico's water temperatures 🌊 (spoiler: warmer waters fuel nastier hurricanes).
\"All aspects of this event were amplified by climate change to different degrees,\" said Ben Clarke, a researcher at Imperial College London and co-author of the study. \"And we'll see more of the same as the world continues to warm.\" 🔥🌡️
The WWA—a squad of international scientists and meteorologists—is all about finding out how climate change is upping the ante on extreme weather. And their latest report couldn't come at a crazier time! Florida's gearing up for Hurricane Milton, set to arrive just 10 days after Helene wreaked havoc. 🙏🏼 Stay safe, Florida fam!
This isn't just another headline, folks. It's a wake-up call. 🌍✨ Let's keep the conversation going and make some changes—for us and for future generations. 🌱💪
Reference(s):
Climate change made deadly Hurricane Helene more intense: study
cgtn.com
