Climate Cast: Unnatural disasters
For meteorologists, this hurricane season is like a recurring weather nightmare. It's not just the number of hurricanes, or destructive storm tracks. It's the extremely rapid intensification that stands out.
NOAA's National Hurricane Center defines rapid intensification as a wind speed increase of at least 35 miles per hour, in 24 hours.
Harvey's winds jumped 45 mph in 24 hours. Irma's and Jose's max winds spiked 60 mph in 24 hours.
Now it appears we have just witnessed the fastest intensification of any hurricane on record with Maria. Maria exploded from Category 1 with 90 mph winds, to Category 5 with 155 mph winds, in one day. That's an incredible wind speed increase of 65 mph in less than 24 hours.
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These record setting "super-hurricanes" are exactly what many climate scientists predicted warmer oceans, and more water vapor would create.
MIT climate and hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel wrote a piece in The Washington Post in which he explained that climate change is actually increasing the physical limits of hurricane wind speeds.
MPR News' chief meteorologist Paul Huttner asked him why he says we should stop calling these climate-enhanced extreme storms "natural disasters."
To hear their conversation use the audio player above.