Madeleine De Gabriele, The Conversation dan Wes Mountain, The Conversation
Cyclone season approacheth, but this year there’s a twist
The Conversation, CC BY31,4 MB(download)
Australia must come to terms with some fundamental shifts in our weather patterns. This month, Andrew Watkins from the BOM and climate scientist Joelle Gergis explore what's in store.
The unpredictability of hurricanes makes it hard to say for sure whether climate change is making them worse. But we do know that sea-level rise and increased evaporation will worsen the impacts.
The category 4 cyclone - the fifth storm of this year’s season, and the strongest so far - has buffeted the Queensland coast across a wide area centred on Airlie Beach.
We’re no longer caught off guard when hurricanes make landfall, the way people were into the early 1900s. Better communications, measurements and observations all feed into better forecasts and more warning.
James Franklin, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Forecasting successes can breed complacency in the general public. But all hurricane damage isn’t necessarily contained within the “cone of uncertainty.”
A causal relationship between cyclone behaviour and anthropogenic global warming is a very real possibility. But most climate scientists hesitate to attribute any single event to global warming.
The devastation to Vanuatu left in the wake of Cyclone Pam shows small islands in the Pacific need a climate insurance scheme, similar to what has been achieved in the Caribbean.