Worse because of climate change

How Helene was worse because of climate change

From CNN Meteorologist Brandon Miller

Two separate climate analysis of Hurricane Helene have found that fossil fuel pollution worsened what would have already been a disastrous situation.

Scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, using methods from previously published attribution studies, found that “climate change caused over 50% more rainfall during Hurricane Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas.”

The study also concluded the rainfall which fell in these regions “was made up to 20 times more likely” because of global warming.

A different analysis comparing Helene to similar weather set-ups also found the warmer ocean and atmosphere worsened the storm’s impacts.

The analysis from ClimaMeter, a network of European climate scientists that help to frame extreme weather in historical climate perspective, found storms like Helene are now about 20% wetter over the Southeast US and that Gulf of Mexico hurricanes are up to 7% windier than those that occurred decades ago.

Both independent analyses found that Hurricane Helene was a largely unique event that would have been a major disaster even without the additional heat in the ocean and atmosphere.

Analyses done in the immediate aftermath of weather and climate disasters — known as “rapid attribution” studies — look at the meteorological variables at play and compare them to previous storms or modeled situations where human-caused warming was not influencing the outcome. This allows scientists to tease out the estimated role that climate change played in the events and impacts.