Hurricanes expected to linger over Northeast cities, causing greater
damage
More storms like Hurricane Sandy could be in the East Coast's future, potentially costing billions of dollars in damage and economic losses.

Date:
November 22, 2021
Source:
American Geophysical Union
Summary:
By the late 21st century, northeastern U.S. cities will see
worsening hurricane outcomes, with storms arriving more quickly
but slowing down once they've made landfall. As storms linger
longer over the East Coast, they will cause greater damage along
the heavily populated corridor, according to a new study.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
By the late 21st century, northeastern U.S. cities will see worsening
hurricane outcomes, with storms arriving more quickly but slowing down
once they've made landfall. As storms linger longer over the East Coast,
they will cause greater damage along the heavily populated corridor,
according to a new study.


==========================================================================
In the new study, climate scientist Andra Garner at Rowan University
analyzed more than 35,000 computer-simulated storms. To assess likely
storm outcomes in the future, Garner and her collaborators compared
where storms formed, how fast they moved and where they ended from the pre-industrial period through the end of the 21st century.

The researchers found that future East Coast hurricanes will likely cause greater damage than storms of the past. The research predicted that
a greater number of future hurricanes will form near the East Coast,
and those storms will reach the Northeast corridor more quickly. The
simulated storms slow to a crawl as they approach the East Coast,
allowing them to produce more wind, rain, floods, and related damage in
the Northeast region. The longest-lived tropical storms are predicted
to be twice as long as storms today.

The study was published in Earth's Future, which publishes
interdisciplinary research on the past, present and future of our planet
and its inhabitants.

The changes in storm speed will be driven by changes in atmospheric
patterns over the Atlantic, prompted by warmer air temperatures. While
Garner and her colleagues note that more research remains to be done
to fully understand the relationship between a warming climate and
changing storm tracks, they noted that potential northward shifts in
the region where Northern and Southern Hemisphere trade winds meet or
slowing environmental wind speeds could be to blame.

"When you think of a hurricane moving along the East Coast, there are
larger scale wind patterns that generally help push them back out to sea," Garner said. "We see those winds slowing down over time." Without those
winds, the hurricanes can overstay their welcome on the coast.

Garner, whose previous work focused on the devastating East Coast effects
of storms like Hurricane Sandy, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic, said the concern raised by the new study is that more storms capable of producing
damage levels similar to Sandy are likely.

And the longer storms linger, the worse they can be, she said.

"Think of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 sitting over Texas, and Hurricane
Dorian in 2019 over the Bahamas," she said. "That prolonged exposure can
worsen the impacts." From 2010 to 2020, U.S. coastlines were hit by 19 tropical cyclones that qualified as billion-dollar disasters, generating approximately $480 billion in damages, adjusted for inflation. If storms
sit over coasts for longer stretches, that economic damage is likely to increase as well. For the authors, that provides clear economic motivation
to stem rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"The work produced yet more evidence of a dire need to cut emissions of greenhouse gases now to stop the climate warming," Garner said.

Co-author Benjamin Horton, who specializes in sea-level rise and leads
the Earth Observatory of Singapore at Nanyang Technological University,
said, "This study suggests that climate change will play a long-term
role in increasing the strength of storms along the east coast of the
United States and elsewhere.

Planning for how to mitigate the impact
of major storms must take this into account." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by American_Geophysical_Union. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Andra J. Garner, Robert E. Kopp, Benjamin P. Horton. Evolving
Tropical
Cyclone Tracks in the North Atlantic in a Warming Climate. Earth's
Future, 2021; DOI: 10.1029/2021EF002326 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211122135525.htm

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