“The most recent report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) found that ‘it is virtually certain that the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic has increased since the 1970s,’ but that there is less evidence of changes being detected in other ocean basins.” Huffington Post, November 8th. The problem in the Pacific is a lack of definitive data. Scientists think that these patterns are repeated in that ocean, but aircraft analysis – routine in the Atlantic – just isn’t available for the Pacific storm systems. Satellite data is not nearly as accurate.
While Superstorm Sandy certainly moved powerful storms much farther north than normal, there have been some pretty intense hurricanes/typhoons (the latter category is nothing more than a hurricane on the other side of the Pacific) in the past with winds around 200 miles per hour: Hurricane Camille in 1969, Super Typhoon Tip in 1979, and Hurricane Allen in 1980.
Enter Typhoon Haiyan (named Yolanda in the Philippines), very late in the season, striking at the end of the first week in November. Sustained winds of 195 miles per hour and gusts topping a whopping 220 miles per hour… well, these figures most probably make it the worst such storm in recorded history. Has global warming heated the water’s surface temperature enough to fee and sustain such a violent storm, with surges topping 23 feet? No one is completely sure, but to too many, it sure seems that way.
Magnify that horror by adding rising oceans, slowly and permanently flooding low-lying islands, like Vanuatu and even parts of the Philippines themselves.… If a storm like Haiyan were to threaten any of these vulnerable islands, they would be swept away and rendered uninhabitable even if the tides subsequently subsided. As Typhoon Haiyan slammed into the Philippines, horrific flooding, from storm surges on the coast to torrential downpours in the middle of these exposed islands, cut a huge swath of death and destruction hitting the Leyte province, and then crossing the central Philippines from Biliran to Busuanga before passing into the West Philippine Sea.” Huffington Post.
The storm weakened as it crossed the Central Philippines and slowed to 130 miles per hour, drenching even Manila, but not before well over 1200 deaths (and counting) were recorded as authorities continued to tally the overall destruction. 800,000 people were evacuated. Next stop? Vietnam, just not nearly as powerful. But Typhoon Haiyan has broken new records for intensity. It has entered that rarified air of “super typhoon,” storms of such intensity that they move into a special category. Since 2002, there have been more of these violent monsters in the Pacific, but not even the three mega-storms mentioned above (the most violent until Haiyan struck) have sreached the levels of this recent super typhoon. Scientists look for the “super typhoon” “doughnut hole” in the infrared signature you can see in the above satellite picture of Haiyan.
It does stand to reason that recording-breaking typhoons occurring at a time of record-breaking Atlantic storms would seem to suggest that whatever is accelerating the Atlantic probably is having a comparable effect on the Pacific. This year, the nasty hurricanes struck farther south – around the Acapulco region in Mexico – but they were there. Again. So should we assume that there might be linkage between man-induced climate change and these storms wherever they occur on earth… or simply shrug our shoulders and tell ourselves either that we don’t know for sure so we shouldn’t be worried or that the world will just have to get used to it, because no one is going to change their fossil fuel ways anytime soon to make much of a difference?
I’m Peter Dekom, and I remain stunned at how little the world seems to care about the destiny we seemed to have rained down upon ourselves.
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