AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the November 7 edition of Climate In The News.
00:00Today we'll touch on how climate change made Hurricane Melissa more intense, and then we'll dig into climate tipping points.
00:08Brett, our first study, it's a very new study, just came out as we see some of the science lately coming out right after a natural disaster.
00:15In this case, Hurricane Melissa from World Weather Attribution that really discusses how much more intense Melissa was due to climate change.
00:23Yeah, interesting study for sure. Heavy five-day rainfall events similar to Melissa are 30% more intense and twice as likely to occur today compared to back in the 20th century.
00:36Across eastern Cuba, those numbers even jump higher, 50% more intense, nine times more likely.
00:42So it's clear that a warming world has contributed to heavier rain from tropical cyclones. I would imagine there's also an impact on the wind speeds too.
00:50Yes, there is. Storms similar to Melissa. Winds, again, very extreme winds we had there. Much more frequent. Occurring now, every 1,700 years in the past, it was like 8,000 years.
01:03Wow, so a much more frequent occurrence of these types of intense hurricanes. It does make sense overall, as we've talked about, the conditions across the different basins of the world, the Atlantic Basin, the case of Melissa, the Sea Service temperatures are warmer, and that obviously contributes too.
01:17Absolutely. More warmth in the oceans, more warmth in the atmosphere holds a lot more moisture, and that's the problem.
01:25So the impacts here going forward will continue to be quite intense, it seems like, from hurricanes that do form.
01:31Our second report from Science Daily, all about climate tipping points, Brett.
01:36It doesn't seem like a good thing, this from Science Daily, talking about the fact we may have hit our first tipping point. What is a tipping point?
01:42Yeah, what is a tipping point? Well, it's basically a level of warming at which key natural systems, such as coral reefs, rainforests, ocean currents, undergo irreversible damage.
01:54Doesn't sound good.
01:55It does not sound good.
01:56In this case, this is the third such year for this report that started back in 2023, the Global Tipping Points Report, and this finds that there's a few areas that we may be reaching or have already reached a tipping point.
02:07Yeah, coral reefs, unfortunately. We're seeing a lot of bleaching down across, especially outside of Australia.
02:14Some polar ice sheets, surprisingly, already may have surpassed a tipping point, but again, the bulk of them, that may be coming in the near future, unfortunately.
02:22Yeah, and the challenge here is that it may not matter how much reduction in warming here in the future, we may have sort of baked in these impacts to the future.
02:30There is some positive news, though, it seems like, with some positive tipping points noted in this report.
02:34Yeah, this has to do with sustainability, cheaper renewable energy due to some of these tipping points, so there's lower costs, of course, less dependence on fossil fuels.
02:46Yeah, so hopefully the renewable energy tipping points that sort of reinforce themselves as those costs continue to come down and therefore reduce emissions.
02:55Thank you, Brett, for that insight.
02:56For other stories about climate, you can find that at AccuWeather.com slash climate.
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