Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ east and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.
Changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ east and Gulf coasts, especially in Florida, a new study said.
While other studies have projected how human-caused climate change will probably alter the frequency, strength and moisture of tropical storms, the study in Friday’s journal Science Advances focuses on the crucial aspect of where hurricanes are going.
It’s all about projected changes in steering currents, said study lead author Karthik Balaguru, a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory climate scientist.
«Along every coast they’re kind of pushing the storms closer to the U.S.,» Balaguru said. The steering currents move from south to north along the Gulf of Mexico; on the East Coast, the normal west-to-east steering is lessened considerably and can be more east-to-west, he said.
Overall, in a worst-case warming scenario, the number of times a storm hits parts of the U.S. coast in general will probably increase by one-third by the end of the century, the study said, based on sophisticated climate and hurricane simulations, including a system researchers developed.
