The last year has brought record-breaking natural disasters of all shapes and sizes to the U.S., from massive hurricanes in the Gulf to wildfires and flash-flooding in the Pacific. Though isolated in time and space, it would be an oversight to consider these events entirely unrelated.
For years, climate scientists have been predicting more extreme weather as carbon emissions increase and global temperatures rise. And what we’re seeing is exactly that, producing wreckage well beyond your every-few-years event. Let’s have a look at the last 12 months.
In August, Houston all but disappeared under Hurricane Harvey’s torrential downpour. Over 30,000 people were displaced, 200,000 homes and business damaged, and nearly 100 lives lost. Harvey dropped over a foot more rain than any prior storm on record in the lower 48 states. Over $125 billion dollars in damage was incurred, costing more than any prior natural disaster in U.S. history, except for Hurricane Katrina.
Weeks later, the country braced again. While most remember Hurricane Irma as “that Category 5 hurricane that calmed before hitting Florida,” — it did not weaken before first depopulating the Caribbean island of Barbuda, where at least 95 percent of property was destroyed or damaged, according to the LA Times. Irma’s 185 mph winds lasted for 37 hours, setting a new world record. Weather.com stated after the storm that “Hurricanes of this intensity often undergo fluctuations in intensity, but Irma did not.”
No comments:
Post a Comment