Journalist Kevin Spear of the Orlando Sentinel reports on the 2015 Governor's Hurricane Conference held in Orlando, Florida. In attendance was EAPS professor Kerry Emanuel, who presented research connecting climate change and storm frequency and intensity. A portion of the article is excerpted below.
Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will present research that ties climate change to fewer small or average-sized storms and an uptick in the number of the most powerful storms.
"The very high intensity events should go up in number and that's important because a disproportionate amount of damage is done by these high category storms even though they are relatively rare," Emanuel said.
"The Andrews, Katrinas and Hugos do a whole lot more damage than all the weak storms put together," he said.
Emanuel's research also points to a likelihood that hurricanes are going to rain a lot more in the future — a worry because of the flooding and deaths that can result.
Read the article in it's entirety, here.