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Washington DC
According to the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group, climate change made Hurricane Helene's devastating rains and winds 10 per cent more intense.
Hurricane Helene dumped torrential rains in the Appachelon region of the southeastern US in the past week, killing more than 200 people and turning into the second deadliest storm after Katrina. As suspected by scientists over the years, the storms are becoming deadlier each year because of the climate crisis.
The hurricane had formed above the Gulf of Mexico when sea surface temperatures were at record hot levels, noted the WWA in a report on its website.
Before Helene hit the US coast, there were a bunch of slow-moving storms that collected moisture, causing heavy rainfall in the southern US states. It is this rain that caused flooding that led to 227 deaths, making it the deadliest hurricane since Katrina in 2005, according to the research group.
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The monitoring group attributed changes in rainfall patterns to climate change. Such rains are now more frequent, happening every seven years in coastal areas.
According to the climate models run by the WWA group, climate change was seen as the cause of 10 per cent heavier rainfall. The group noted that if global temperatures rise by two degrees Celcius, such rainfall will be between 15 and 25 per cent more intense.
"Rainfall events as severe as those brought by hurricane Helene now occur about once every 7 (3 – 25) years in the coastal region, and about once every 70 (20 – 3000) years in the inland region," it said.
The IRIS climate model that WAA ran indicated the frequency and intensity of storms rising by 150 per cent. The maximum wind speeds have increased by around 11 per cent.
And it attributed the weather changes to human-caused climate change. "Using the Ocean Climate Shift Index, we find that the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the track of the storm have been made about 200-500 times more likely due to the burning of fossil fuels.
"Together, these findings show that climate change is enhancing conditions conducive to the most powerful hurricanes like Helene, with more intense rainfall totals and wind speeds. This is in line with other scientific findings that Atlantic tropical cyclones are becoming wetter under climate change and undergoing more rapid intensification," it said in the report.
"If the world continues to burn fossil fuels, causing global warming to reach 2 °C above pre-industrial levels, devastating rainfall events in both regions will become another 15-25 % more likely," WWA said.
Although a 10 per cent increase in rainfall might seem relatively small that small change in the hazard really leads to big change in impacts and damage, news agency AFP quoted climate scientist Friederike Otto, who heads WWA group, as saying.
(With inputs from agencies)