Why Does Climate Change Affect Hurricane Formation?

By Anna Bertrand

Climate change is often said to intensify and increase the frequency of super storms such as hurricanes, but why does this actually happen?

When hurricanes form, they use the warm, moist air from oceans near the equator to form their giant storms. The warm air rises, and the low pressure left beneath it is filled with cool air that becomes warm and rises as well. This cycle continues, and as the warm, moist air gets high enough, it turns into clouds that begin to spin and grow with each new batch of air, eventually becoming the type of storm we often see on the news rising out of the Gulf of Mexico. 

As climate change and global warming continue to intensify, they will continue to increase the temperatures of the oceans and the world in general. The greater amount of warm and moist air will not only make the formation of hurricanes and tropical storms more likely, it will also make them stronger. Storms, with the help of global warming, are expected to have greater wind speed and greater rain fall.

Hurricanes are known to have great impact on the land areas that they hit, and with global warming this will only get worse. This is all the more reason to do what we can to lessen the intensity of climate change!

Text Sources:

http://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/HurricanesandGlobalWarming.pdf?dmc=1&ts=20130311T1616355625

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/hurricanes/

Picture credits:

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/hurricanes/