Climate Change Gave Significant Boost to Milton’s Destructive Rain, Winds, Scientists Say

Human-caused climate change intensified deadly Hurricane Milton ‘s rainfall by 20 to 30% and strengthened its winds by about 10%, scientists said in a new flash study. The analysis comes just two weeks after Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern United States, a storm also fueled by climate change.

World Weather Attribution researchers said Friday that without climate change, a hurricane like Milton would make landfall as a weaker Category 2, not considered a “major” storm, instead of a Category 3.

WWA’s rapid studies aren’t peer-reviewed but use peer-reviewed methods. The WWA compares a weather event with what might have been expected in a world that hasn’t warmed about 1.3 degree Celsius since pre-industrial times.

The team of scientists test the influence of climate change on storms by analyzing weather data and climate models, but in the case of Milton, which followed so shortly after Helene, the researchers used only weather observations data. WWA said despite using different approaches, the results are compatible with studies of other hurricanes in the area that show a similar hurricane intensity increase of between 10 and 50% due to climate change, and about a doubling in likelihood.

“We are therefore confident that such changes in heavy rainfall are attributable to human-caused climate change,” said WWA, an international scientist collaborative that launched in 2015 and conducts rapid climate attribution studies.

At least eight people died in Milton, which spread damage far and wide even though it didn’t directly strike Tampa as feared. Roadways flooded and dozens of tornadoes tore through coastal areas. At one point power was out to some 3.4 million customers, and more than 2.4 million remained without power Friday morning.

Source: AP News.com