By Somini Sengupta ,  Brad Plumer  and  David Gelles , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The international climate summit opened on Thursday in Belém, a Brazilian city on the edge of the imperiled Amazon rainforest, with several of America’s global allies and rivals alike making the case that slowing down global warming is today key to economic growth and energy security. It was a sharp counterpoint to President Trump, who has called climate change a “con job” ...attacked global efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas ...has launched a full-throated...attack on global efforts to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. ...no senior American government officials are present at the meeting in Belém. ...extreme weather events, aggravated by the burning of coal, oil and gas, has heightened human suffering. In the last two weeks alone, storms and hurricanes supersized by climate change clobbered Mexico, Jamaica and Haiti. Globally, 2025 is on track to be the sec...

By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Hurricane Melissa’s path through the Caribbean last month was made more violent by climate change, according to a scientific analysis released Thursday. Researchers from the group World Weather Attribution found that the storm had 7 percent stronger wind speeds than a similar one in a world that has not been warmed by the burning of fossil fuels. They also found the rate of rainfall inside the eyewall of the storm was 16 percent more intense. Melissa made landfall as a Category 5 storm in Jamaica on Oct. 28 with wind speeds of 185 miles per hour, collapsing buildings and knocking out internet to most of the island. It continued on to Cuba as a Category 3 storm, forcing hundreds to evacuate, and pummeled Haiti with catastrophic flooding. Dozens of people in hard-hit areas have died. Even a small increase in wind speed can cause substantial damage, said Friederike Otto, one of the group’s founders and a climatologist at Imperia...

By Mary Gilbert , Allison Chinchar , Rebekah Riess , Andrew Freedman , Cindy Von Quednow, CNN. Excerpt: The powerful storm has undergone astonishingly rapid changes — a phenomenon that has become far more common in recent years as the planet warms. It quickly became a rare Category 5 for a time Saturday, before weakening and becoming a larger system on Sunday as it churns through the Atlantic Ocean north of the Caribbean. Erin went from a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds at 11 a.m. Friday to a Category 5 with near 160 mph winds just over 24 hours later. It put Erin in the history books as one of the fastest-strengthening Atlantic hurricanes on record, and potentially the fastest intensification rate for any storm earlier than September 1....  Full article at https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/17/weather/hurricane-erin-tracking-atlantic-climate . 

By Andrew Freedman , CNN.  Excerpt: For the past four years, a fleet of drone vessels has purposefully steered into the heart of hurricanes to gather information on a storm’s wind speeds, wave heights and, critically, the complex transfer of heat and moisture between the ocean and the air right above it. These small boats from California-based company Saildrone also film harrowing footage from the ocean surface in the middle of nature’s most powerful tempests—videos that are scientifically useful and have also gone viral, giving ordinary people windows into storms. Importantly, Saildrone vessels were being used by federal scientists to improve forecast and warning accuracy. But they won’t be in forecasters’ suite of tools this year. The company “was unable to bid” on a contract for this season, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokesperson Keeley Belva told CNN. The reason why concerns the timing of NOAA’s solicitation for this season’s contract.... NOAA sent out its...

By Damian Carrington , The Guardian.  Excerpt: The climate crisis caused an additional six weeks of dangerously hot days in 2024 for the average person, supercharging the fatal impact of heatwaves around the world. The effects of human-caused global heating were far worse for some people,  an analysis  by World Weather Attribution (WWA) and Climate Central has shown. Those in Caribbean and Pacific island states were the hardest hit. Many endured about 150 more days of dangerous heat than they would have done without global heating, almost half the year. Nearly half the world’s countries endured at least two months of high-risk temperatures. Even in the least affected places, such as the UK, US and Australia, the carbon pollution from fossil fuel burning has led to an extra three weeks of elevated temperatures. ...“The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024 and caused unrelenting suffering,” said Dr Friederike Otto, of Imper...

By Richard Luscombe , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Most left when they were told to. But some chose to stay, even though officials warned  Hurricane Milton  would turn their  homes into coffins. ...most people were heeding the warning. This time around people noticed the intensity and started taking it seriously when they saw 180mph winds being talked about. It opened their eyes.”....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/09/hurricane-milton-florida-stay-evacuate . [GSS note: this reminds us of the song, The Preacher & The Flood by Joel Mabus.]  See also the Guardian article Trump continues to deny climate crisis as he visits hurricane-ravaged Georgia . 

By Roberto González , Eos/AGU.  Excerpt: Rapid intensification of hurricanes is 50% more likely to occur during marine heat waves in the Gulf of Mexico and northwestern Caribbean Sea ...according to a  study  published in August in  Communications Earth and Environment . These types of hurricanes are more dangerous as they make landfall because their intensity is harder to predict....  Full article at https://eos.org/articles/marine-heat-waves-make-tropical-storm-intensification-more-likely .  See also other Eos articles on heat waves - https://eos.org/tag/heat-waves . 

By Andrea Thompson , Scientific American.  Excerpt: More than 160 people have lost their lives to the ferocious winds and  catastrophic flooding wrought by Hurricane Helene . But the true death toll will take years—likely more than a decade—to unfold. A new study published on Wednesday in  Nature  found that the average  tropical cyclone in the U.S. ultimately causes about 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths  (those beyond what would typically be expected), compared with the average of 24 direct deaths reported in official statistics. The study’s authors estimated that, between 1950 and 2015, tropical storms and hurricanes caused between 3.6 million and 5.2 million excess deaths—more than those caused by traffic deaths or infectious diseases. And such storm-related deaths involve people from some groups more than others, marking an “important and understudied contributor to health in the United States, particularly for young or Black populations,” the authors wro...

By Isabelle Taft , Elisabeth Parker, Valerie Boey Ramsey, and  Patricia Mazzei , The New York Times.   Excerpt: A rash of Gulf storms in recent years, culminating with Hurricane Helene on Thursday, has given way to a new reality for the booming region’s residents: Hurricanes that remain hundreds of miles away are likely to wreak havoc on the Tampa Bay region, as are smaller storms. Helene, a Category 4 hurricane, made landfall near Perry, Fla., some 200 miles north of Tampa. It followed a path similar to  Hurricane Idalia  in August of last year and  Hurricane Debby  last month. All three storms put wide swaths of the Tampa Bay region underwater, though none more than Helene, which brought storm surge into neighborhoods that had not seen such flooding in decades — or ever. ...More residents are wrestling lately with how — or whether — to keep living in a beautiful place that has become vulnerable to more frequent and intense storms as well as rising se...

By Carolyn Gramling , Science News.  Excerpt: One of the widest hurricanes on record slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast on September 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm, inundating Florida’s coast with meters-high storm surge and sending tropical storm–force winds as far as 500 kilometers from its eye. ...Just three days earlier, it was a disorganized cluster of thunderstorms off the eastern coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. A mere “tropical disturbance,” it was dubbed PTC9 for tracking purposes. ...Within just 60 hours...PTC9 would intensify...from winds less than 35 knots (about 65 kilometers per hour) to hurricane-force winds of at least 100 knots (185 kilometers per hour). It was the fastest predicted spin-up from disturbance to major hurricane in the NHC’s history. ...Rapid intensification is becoming a new normal for hurricanes. NHC  defines rapid intensification  as when a storm’s maximum sustained winds jump by at least 56 kph (35 miles per hour) in less than a da...

About research by LAIYIN ZHU  et al, Science.  In the Atlantic, ...Warm air from an ordinary thunderstorm has absorbed heat from tepid seawater and begun churning—the birth of a hurricane. But, whether the storm will be a sprinkle or deluge when it makes landfall  depends largely on how dusty it is , according to a new study. Wind strips dust from the Sahara Desert, bringing it westward across the Atlantic. These plumes of dirt-laden air provide marine life with nutrients and can affect air quality half a world away. And they’re known to be a wet blanket for growing hurricanes—or, more accurately,  a dry one  . The lack of moisture, shearing winds, and even the dust itself—by reflecting warming solar rays—can squelch a would-be storm. But it turns out that’s only true if there’s enough dust. When there’s too little, the particles act as nucleation seeds for clouds, boosting the storm’s deluge and the damage it causes when it comes ashore, researchers report...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/02/us/hurricane-season-2023-rapid-intensification.html By William B. Davis  and  Judson Jones , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The 2023 hurricane seasons in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific came to an end this week, with both basins experiencing an above average number of storms, fueled by extremely warm ocean temperatures. The two basins had a combined 37 storms, 13 of which rapidly intensified, sometimes jumping multiple hurricane categories in less than a day. A high proportion of rapid-onset storms this year exceeded the standard definition of rapid intensification — an increase of at least 35 miles per hour in sustained winds, over 24 hours. Experts said that this emphasized the way hurricane seasons are changing and the need for more reliable forecast models. When storms intensify abruptly near land, it becomes more difficult to predict how severely places will be affected, and it leaves officials and residents with little ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/hurricane-otis-smashed-mexico-and-broke-records-why-did-no-one-see-it-coming By PHIE JACOBS , Science. Excerpt: Early Wednesday morning, Hurricane Otis became the strongest storm in recorded history to strike the Pacific coast of Mexico. The Category 5 hurricane made landfall near Acapulco, where its heavy rain and 265-kilometer-per-hour (kph) winds unleashed massive landslides and knocked out power lines, killing at least 2 dozen people and causing widespread devastation. But just 2 days earlier, meteorologists doubted whether Otis—then a tropical storm—would even achieve hurricane status. Forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center expected the storm to undergo “ gradual strengthening ,” with most computer models predicting maximum wind speeds of about 100 kph. Instead, as Otis careened toward Mexico’s coastline, its winds increased by 180 kph in 24 hours, a record amount of “rapid intensification.” ...ocean waters have been “unusually wa...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/atlantic-hurricanes-are-more-likely-to-power-up-quickly-180983104/ By Brian Handwerk , Smithsonian Magazine. Excerpt: ... a new study , published Thursday in  Scientific Reports , found that in recent decades Atlantic hurricanes were far more likely to dial up from weak Category 1 to major Category 3 or higher storms in only 24 hours. Storms from 2001 to 2020 did so at more than twice the rate as the same types of storms between 1970 and 1990. ...While the study did not include an analysis that attempts to firmly identify the cause or causes of the more quickly intensifying storms, Garner interprets the results as a warning call on how climate change is raising sea surface temperatures. ...Hurricanes are  fueled by warm surface water . ...since reliable global satellite data began to be collected in the 1980s, there has been a remarkably consistent average of about  80 tropical cyclones each year . Most current research sugges...

https://www.nytimes.com/article/tropical-storm-nigel-hurricane.html By Judson Jones , The New York Times.  Excerpt: ...The Atlantic hurricane season started on June 1 and runs through Nov. 30. In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration  predicted that there would be 12 to 17 named storms  this year, a “near-normal” amount. On Aug. 10, NOAA officials  revised their estimate upward , to 14 to 21 storms. ...A  record 30 named storms took place in 2020 . This year features an  El Niño  pattern, which arrived in June. ...it typically impedes the number of Atlantic hurricanes ...increases the amount of wind shear, .... Hurricanes need a calm environment to form, and the instability caused by increased wind shear makes those conditions less likely. (El Niño has the opposite effect in the Pacific, reducing the amount of wind shear.) At the same time, this year’s heightened sea surface temperatures pose a number of threats, including the a...

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/03/business/economy/canada-wildfires-economy.html By Lydia DePillis , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Canada’s wildfires have  burned 20 million acres ,  blanketed Canadian and U.S. cities  with smoke and raised health concerns on both sides of the border, with no end in sight. The toll on the Canadian economy is only beginning to sink in. The fires have upended oil and gas operations, reduced available timber harvests, dampened the tourism industry and imposed  uncounted costs  on the national health system. ...What long seemed a faraway concern has snapped into sharp relief in recent years, as billowing smoke has suffused vast areas of North America, floods have  washed away  neighborhoods and heat waves have strained power grids. That incurs billions of dollars in costs, and has longer-reverberating consequences, such as insurers  withdrawing  from markets prone to hurricanes and fires. In some early...

https://www.science.org/content/article/shelter-storm-can-giant-flood-barrier-protect-texas-cities-hurricanes By Warren Cornwall, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: A plan to wall off Houston and nearby industry from flooding caused by hurricanes will cost tens of billions of dollars. Will it be enough? ...In September 2008, Bill Merrell, an oceanographer at Texas A&M University, Galveston, ...trapped with his wife, daughter, grandson, ...by Hurricane Ike ...sat in his office and sketched plans for a project he hoped would put an end to the storm-driven flooding that had repeatedly devastated this part of Texas. It was an ambitious vision: Seventy kilometers of seawalls rising 5 meters above sea level would stretch the length of Galveston Island and beyond. Enormous gates would span the 3-kilometer-wide channel through which ships pass in and out of Galveston Bay. ...Today, that first brainstorm has morphed into a $31 billion plan from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the nation...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/climate/florida-real-estate-hurricane-ian.html By  Christopher Flavelle , The New york Times.  Excerpt: The scale of the destruction from Hurricane Ian threatens to destabilize Florida’s insurance and real estate markets, as devastated residents file a record number of claims for damaged or destroyed homes. Privately insured losses from Ian are expected  to reach $67 billion , not including flood insurance, according to an estimate by RMS, a catastrophe modeling firm. That is in line with  other   forecasts  and puts Ian, which slammed into Florida two weeks ago, close to 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the most expensive disaster in United States history. And it’s about twice the toll, in current dollars, of insured losses from Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which had been the most expensive storm ever to hit Florida and bankrupted some underwriters while causing others to flee the state. Data now makes it clear that Ian is part of ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/04/climate/hurricane-ian-mold-home-remediation.html By  Winston Choi-Schagrin , Photographs by Emily Kask, The New York Times.  Excerpt: Mold may be one of the most devastating, long-term and hidden costs of America’s increasingly humid, wet and stormy climate. And while the extent of America’s mold problem is difficult to assess, there is consensus that climate change and more intense heat, rainfall and flooding — three key ingredients in a mold outbreak — are heightening the risk. There is relatively little publicly available data around mold rates, although there is robust scientific data that mold poses serious health risks from inhaling spores in the air. In an acknowledgment of the growing danger, last year the Federal Emergency Management Agency expanded their disaster-aid assistance to cover mold growth. Since the start of the program it has already paid out $142.9 million to 95,000 households, and that was before Hurricanes Fiona a...

In Science Magazine: Researchers in Puerto Rico struggle to adapt in the aftermath of Hurricane Fiona -|- For scientists, Hurricane Ian is posing threats—and opportunities and in The New York Times: On Florida’s Islands, Scenes of Paradise Lost, Maybe for Good -|- Hurricane Ian Descends on South Carolina, Swamping Beachside Towns -|- For Once, the Hurricane Shark Was Real .