For over a year, global ocean temperatures have been consistently shattering records, shocking scientists. Now hurricane watchers are getting even more worried, given that ocean heat is what fuels the biggest, most destructive cyclones. Researchers at the University of Arizona just predicted an extremely active North Atlantic season—which runs from June 1 to the end of November—with an estimated 11 hurricanes, five of them being major (meaning Category 3 or higher, with sustained wind speeds of at least 111 miles per hour). That would dwarf the 2023 season—itself the fourth-most-active season on record—which saw seven hurricanes, three of which intensified into major ones.
“Part of the reason is very warm ocean surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean,” said Xubin Zeng, director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Center at the University of Arizona. The other reason is that the Pacific Ocean is transitioning from a warm El Niño, which discourages the formation of Atlantic hurricanes, into cold La Niña, which encourages them. “So those two factors together give us a very active hurricane season prediction for this year.”
As a tropical cyclone grows, scientists measure sustained wind speeds to get an idea of how it’s intensifying. (“Tropical cyclone” is the general term for these storms. The ones that hit the U.S. coasts are known as hurricanes.) When the speeds increase by 30 knots (35 miles per hour) or more in 24 hours, that’s considered “rapid intensification.” Last year’s Hurricane Lee, for instance, grew from 70 knots to 116 knots over just 12 hours. Previous research has found a huge increase in this sort of rapid intensification near coastlines since 1980.
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