00:00Today on Climate in the News, first we'll look at the impacts of hurricanes in Hawaii and whether they'll be
00:05increasing due to climate change.
00:07And then we'll review a new study that looks at the excess fatalities in Europe due to the significant summer
00:15heat waves of 2026.
00:16Brett, our first study is from the University of Hawaii, which is very timely.
00:20It's been a very active, one of the most active hurricane seasons on record for the Hawaiian Islands.
00:25And this study looks at how the impacts of tropical storms and hurricanes may change as we head into the
00:30future due to climate change.
00:31Yeah, we've had strengthening El Nino this year.
00:33Certainly El Nino has an impact on storms in regards to Hawaii.
00:37Stronger storms typically affect the islands, but the numbers, do we have more or less, that's still a little bit
00:43uncertain.
00:44But the key is, like this year, storms don't need to make a direct impact, meaning track right over the
00:50islands to have extreme impacts like flooding and wind damage.
00:53And now, tropical systems in Hawaii are relatively rare overall.
00:58They happen on average once or maybe twice a year.
01:00This season has been unusually active.
01:02In order to run this study, they looked at sort of simulated tropical systems over many, many or even a
01:07thousand years.
01:08What does the study tell us about what the next number of decades holds with how El Nino and La
01:13Nina may impact these tropical systems?
01:15Well, warming of the oceans, the general Pacific Basin in general, means weaker La Ninas usually.
01:21So if that's the case, the differences between the El Nino and La Nina impacts are going to be less,
01:26which completely makes sense.
01:28Also, late-century simulations also say the tracks of some of these hurricanes may be a little bit farther to
01:35the southwest with El Nino compared to La Nina.
01:37Yeah, all good information for infrastructure planners and emergency managers moving forward.
01:42Our second article today is from NPR that focuses on the really tragic situation in Europe from this summer with
01:5050,000 lives were lost due to heat, the significant heat waves, and looks at what impact climate change had
01:56on these heat waves.
01:57Yeah, big, big impact.
01:59Looks like 71 percent higher than the previous record amount of deaths due to heat in Europe this year.
02:05So a real serious situation there, and likely going to get worse.
02:09Climate change blamed for two-thirds of the deaths because a lot of this is caused by the burning of
02:15fossil fuels, as we well know, coal, oil, and gas.
02:19And Europe is the fastest warming continent currently.
02:22What parts of Europe were hardest hit?
02:24Yeah, well, Italy is the biggest, Rome especially, a lot of deaths there.
02:28France, Spain, and also Germany, which is kind of surprising.
02:31And to do this, they looked at a variety of statistics.
02:34It's always challenging to count fatalities due to heat.
02:37They're often undercounted.
02:38But they looked at various statistical models to come up with these numbers, which are quite robust, and they've been
02:43verified by a number of different scientists as well.
02:46I guess going forward, it's important that there's some mitigation in terms of checking on vulnerable groups and other types
02:50of mitigation strategies.
02:52Yes.
02:52So the projections are we've 45% heat deaths attributed to global warming in the early 2000s, 45% today,
03:00up to 65%.
03:02Infrastructure is the big thing.
03:03In Europe, they're not built to deal with this much heat, unlike the United States.
03:09Many places just do not have air conditioning.
03:11Yes.
03:11So low-carbon cooling alternatives are needed, and obviously lowering emissions overall.
03:17Exactly.
03:17Thank you, Brett.
03:18For other insights and stories about climate, you may find that at accuweather.com slash climate.
