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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
There’s a new world order in the Atlantic Ocean, and Hurricane Erin
gave us a frightening peek
By Andrew Freedman, CNN
Updated:
8:46 AM EDT, Fri August 29, 2025
Source: CNN
When in the Atlantic Ocean last week, the alarming part wasn’t solely
how dangerous it had become as a Category 5 monster: It was also just
how typical such an ultra-rapid rate of intensification – winds
accelerating by 85 mph in 24 hours – has become.
Tropical cyclones have a greater propensity to rapidly intensify as the
planet warms, studies have shown, which could imperil coastal
populations that might have prepared for a tropical storm but suddenly
face a menacing major hurricane.
It’s every emergency manager’s nightmare scenario.
Rapid intensification is defined as an increase in a storm’s maximum
sustained winds by at least 35 mph in 24 hours, but in recent years,
and certainly with Hurricane Erin, storms have far exceeded this
threshold. Hurricane Milton, for example, had an intensification rate
of 90 mph in 24 hours while traversing the Gulf’s ultra-warm waters
last year, and Erin ranks in the upper echelon of historical Atlantic
basin storms as well.
A shocking number of Atlantic hurricanes have rapidly intensified in
recent years. Hurricanes Milton, Ian, Helene and Ida have all come in
the past few hurricane seasons, at the same time as the Atlantic has
broken records for hot ocean temperatures.
It’s not surprising that hurricanes are intensifying more rapidly,
experts told CNN — but every hurricane shouldn’t be expected to
explode into Category 5 status.
“There has been a notable increase in the proportion of (hurricanes)
that have been going through rapid intensification and extreme rapid
intensification” in the North Atlantic basin and globally, said Gabe
Vecchi, a climate researcher at Princeton University.
“Erin was extreme, even in a warmer world,” he said, but the odds
of its extremely rapid intensification rate “were made larger by
historical warming of the tropics.”
Like Vecchi, Daniel Gilford, a climate scientist at the nonprofit
research and communications group Climate Central, said the key link
between the increased proportion of rapidly intensifying hurricanes and
recent years lies in the warming oceans.
“There does seem to be consistent evidence suggesting that rapid
intensification events are becoming more frequent with climate change,
that as we continue to warm the planet, those sea surface temperatures
are allowing rapid intensification to take place more frequently,” he
said.
Climate Central looking at this connection soon after Hurricane Erin
reached Category 5 status. It found that warming oceans due to climate
pollution very likely made the difference in the storm reaching
Category 5 intensity instead of becoming only a Category 4 storm with
less destructive potential had it hit land.
But there are reasons to believe that rapidly intensifying hurricanes
won’t continue to get worse — or even become the norm. And
human-caused global warming might not be responsible for all the
current trends. For example, the maximum potential intensity of a
hurricane is governed not just by the temperature of the oceans but
also by atmospheric factors, including the difference between the
temperature of the lower and upper atmosphere, Kim Wood, an atmospheric
scientist at the University of Arizona, explained.
“I always like to include the caveat that warming waters (rising sea
surface temperatures) aren’t directly correlated with higher
intensification rates,” Wood said in an email. Because the upper
atmosphere has been warming too, this has increased atmospheric
stability, which is the equivalent of and the maximum intensity a storm
can reach if conditions are ideal.
Wood to determine how much more common rapid intensification rates are
becoming and found higher-end intensifiers like Erin are seeing some of
the largest jumps in frequency in the Atlantic, rather than storms that
strengthen right at the definition of rapid intensification (35 mph in
24 hours).
Also, not all of the warming in the North Atlantic Ocean during the
past several decades is directly attributable to global warming; it’s
partially — and somewhat paradoxically — tied to the reduction in
pollutants known as sulfate aerosols owing to clean air laws in North
America and Europe in particular.
At the end of the day, however, the warmer the world gets, the more
likely it is that fledgling tropical cyclones will take advantage of
hotter oceans and other ingredients to skyrocket in their intensity,
Gilford said.
“We’re living in a world where … there will be more Erins in the
future, and these types of events like Erin will happen more
frequently,” he said.
The forecasting challenge
Forecasters have improved their ability to predict rapid
intensification in recent years, but track forecasts are still far more
reliable than intensity projections.
Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and affiliated organizations have been tackling the challenge of
anticipating when a storm may undergo rapid intensification, given the
need for coastal regions to make evacuation decisions well in advance
of landfall.
But, as was the case with Hurricane Erin, forecasts still can lag a
storm’s rapid shifts.
“Rapid intensification of hurricanes is hard to predict and makes a
storm have more damage potential very abruptly,” Vecchi said. This
makes rapidly intensifying storms “unusually dangerous.”
He said making further investments in improving forecast accuracy while
also reducing greenhouse gas emissions are both necessary to lessen the
risks these storms pose. could jeopardize some of the recent forecast
gains, as well as delay or scuttle future improvements.
“Global warming has made rapid intensification much more likely, and
we expect future warming to continue this trend,” Vecchi said.
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