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Kevin Trenberth's avatar

I have written a LOT on hurricanes and climate change, lots of summary info here:

Trenberth, K. E., L. Cheng, P. Jacobs, Y. Zhang, and J. Fasullo, 2018: Hurricane Harvey links to ocean heat content. Earth's Future, 6, 730-744, Doi: 10.1029/2018EF000825 [PDF]

available at my web site.

Basically there is more energy available and more activity is expected. This can occur in several ways:

more intensity

Bigger

longer lasting

heavier rainfalls.

The first 3 are not independent of the last one. There is good evidence for all of these but not strong observations on duration and size. Eyewall replacements lead to bigger storms. In general for hurricanes a 30% increase in precip occurs but whether manifested at one place depends on speed of storm.

Please check out the paper which is not behind a paywall

Keviun Trenberth

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Jason's avatar

“…we also need to better adapt to the types of extremes we have already experienced in the past.”

Such a key point. A lot of vulnerability could be reduced just by designing for past events.

It was Hurricane Hazel in 1954 that prompted a great deal of storm preparedness in Ontario probably preventing a lot of loss that otherwise would’ve occurred in following years

https://www.heritagetrust.on.ca/pages/programs/provincial-plaque-program/provincial-plaque-background-papers/hurricane-hazel

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