Hurricane-Warmig Link Stronger Than Ever: "I Don't See A Lot Of Options For Central America"

[hatrack]

EDIT

Climate scientists say that this year’s record-breaking hurricane season and the “unprecedented” double blow for Central America has a clear link to climate crisis. “In a 36-hour period [Eta] went from a depression to a very strong category 4,” said Bob Bunting, CEO of the nonprofit Climate Adaptation Center. “That is just not normal. Probably it was the fastest spin up from a depression to a major hurricane in history.”

The evidence of the influence of climate crisis is not so much in the record-breaking 30 tropical storms in the Atlantic so far this year, but the strength, rapid intensification and total rainfall of these weather systems. “The warmer ocean waters that climate change brings are expected to make the stronger storms stronger and make them rapidly intensify more frequently and at a greater rate,” said Dr Jeff Masters, a meteorologist and contributor to Yale Climate Connections. “These things have already been observed, particularly in the Atlantic, and it’s going to be increasingly so in coming decades.”

Central America has been one of the regions most affected by climate crisis to date, first with Hurricane Mitch, and in recent years with more extreme weather patterns, particularly in what’s known as the dry corridor, which extends from northern Costa Rica all the way to southern Mexico. “Heat is energy,” said Masters. “Depending on the prevailing weather conditions you’re going to intensify those conditions.”

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“I don’t see a lot of options for Central America to deal with the global warming issue,” said Masters. “There are going to be a lot migrants and in fact, a lot of the migration that’s already happening in recent years is due to the drought that started affecting Central America back in 2015.” Hondurans migrated to the US in significant numbers for the first time following Hurricane Mitch. In the year before the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 250,000 Hondurans were apprehended at the US southwest border, more than double any previous year and surpassed only by its neighbor to the north, Guatemala.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/15/scientists-link-record-breaking-hurricane-season-to-climate-crisis

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

1. Birds that predict hurricanes

https://www.audubon.org/news/are-these-birds-better-computers-predicting-hurricane-seasons


It was with some trepidation that, a little over a year ago, Christopher Heckscher tweeted a prediction: The 2018 Atlantic Ocean hurricane season would be stronger than average, with an accumulated cyclone energy—or ACE, a measure of the season’s intensity—somewhere between 70 and 150. His unease was understandable. Heckscher was publicly pitting his napkin-math projection against forecasts generated by state-of-the-art computer models churning through decades of meteorological data. And Heckscher isn’t even a meteorologist—he’s an ornithologist. The source of his data? A bunch of birds in Delaware.

*snip*

That analysis revealed that the Veeries had longer breeding seasons during years with relatively mild hurricane seasons and cut their nesting short in harsher years. Their behavior lined up closely with both the ACE and the number of major hurricanes. Curtailing their breeding activity and starting migration earlier may give the birds the flexibility to wait out a strong storm before crossing open water and still arrive at their wintering grounds on time.

*snip*

This is an amazing story. I saw a story about the birds on a Netflix show called “Connections”, it is in the first show of the first season, “Surveillance”. The episode is not completely about the birds it’s one story among a couple.

[Boomer]

2. Political unrest follows climate migration

This past presidential term, we saw Trump use climate migration as a political tool. As the migrations increase in size and frequency, we can expect more political destabilization here in the U.S.. Part of our citizenry will urge humane response and integration, another portion will want to circle the wagons and keep out the "invaders".