eli5: I know that these most recent severe storms and disasters are undoubtedly a result of worsening climate change, but as a non-science person I don’t understand exactly how/why.
In: Planetary Science
Climate change means that the oceans are getting warmer – over the past 123 years the average surface temperature of the oceans has increased by an average of 0.19f/0.078C per decade. Warm water is the fuel that powers hurricanes – the warmer the water the faster the hurricane can “fuel” itself up.
The surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico has increased by 1C over the past 50 years and this year that surface temperature is at a record high. This is why Hurricane Helene had so much water to dump over land and why Hurricane Milton was supercharged so quickly from a tropical storm to a category 5 hurricane.
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