Climate change found to amplify hurricane’s power

Human-caused climate change boosted the destructive winds and rain unleashed by Hurricane Melissa and increased the temperatures and humidity that fueled the storm, according to an analysis released Thursday.

- By ISABELLA O’MALLEY

Melissa was one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes to make landfall and brought destructive weather to Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic and Cuba, causing dozens of deaths across the Caribbean. Roofs were torn off homes, hospitals were damaged, roads were blocked by landslides and crop fields were ruined.

The rapid analysis by World Weather Attribution found that climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and made the rainfall near the center ofthe storm 16% more intense. The scientists also wrote that the temperature and humidity in which the storm intensified were made six times more likely due to climate change compared with a pre-industrial world.

Rapid attribution analyses are a type of research that study factors influencing an extreme weather event and explore what the event would have been like in a world without climate change. They are typically published days or weeks after an extreme event.