While Hurricane Helen and Hurricane Milton in the United States grab the headlines, what happened in the rest of the world? And what does the approaching winter have in store for us in the shadow of the climate crisis?
This year, September and October brought with them extreme storms with devastating consequences that led to severe damage and cost human lives around the world. The headlines these days are mainly occupied by hurricane 'Milton', with severe sights from Florida, United States. Last month it was Hurricane Helen in the United States and Storm Boris that hit Europe. "This is just the beginning," says Prof. Yoav Yair, faculty member of the School of Sustainability at Reichman University and visiting professor at the National Institute for Climate and Environmental Policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "Now it's random - a flood here, a heat wave there, fires... but the frequency and intensity will increase. Boris is a clear example." But while all eyes are now on the United States, also in Africa and Asia it seemed already last month as if the weather had gone crazy.
Africa: damage to 4 million people
On September 12, shortly before the floods and heavy rains hit Europe, UNICEF (UNICEF, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund) published an announcement about assistance in dealing with Floods from West to Central Africa which affected about 4 million people. Among other things, the heavy rains in the region led to the bursting of dams and the flooding of entire cities in Nigeria. The floods led to 145 deaths and the destruction of 70,000 homes in Chad, and more than 72,000 children were affected by floods in Mali, where a state of national disaster was declared as early as the end of August. The floods also affected The city of Yagua in northern Cameroon, almost 200 schools were flooded and 200,000 people were displaced from their homes. Another danger from the floods is sanitary; UNICEF also stated that the risk of viral infections and the outbreak of infectious diseases such as cholera and malaria increases because of disease carriers that are spread in the flood waters.
Southeast Asia: Typhoon Yagi, no longer the type of typhoon you are used to
Typhoon Yagi in Southeast Asia caused for floods in the Philippines At the beginning of September. Since then, it reached the Chinese island of Hainan on September 6 and from there continued to Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, leaving behind a trail of great destruction. In Vietnam, the storm and heavy rains led to flood and mudslides, and the number of casualties It stood at more than 250 souls, with hundreds missing. Also in Myanmar report On over 200 dead and over 200,000 displaced from their homes. In both countries the economic damage is considerable, and includes damage to factories and infrastructure alongside more than 5 million dunams of Destroyed crops.
Typhoon Yagi is considered to be the most extreme that hit the region in the last year, and even though the 'typhoon season' is a familiar thing, we are witnessing a change in the patterns of tropical storms and their level of destruction due to an increase in their intensity, their geographic location and their habitat. The changes in the intensity and duration of the storms compared to historical data are most evident precisely in those regions that received the most powerful blow last month, in Vietnam and Myanmar, as written In an article in Nature. In fact, in the last four decades, from 1979 to 2016, there has been an increase in the destructive power of tropical storms. The devastation resulting from them is expected to continue to grow due to the spread of the storms to the inland areas of Asia and their expected duration in these areas.
From Europe to the United States: 'Boris' and 'Francine'
On the other side of the world, on September 11, she arrived Storm Francine to the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi in the United States. Just before reaching land, 'Francine' jumped from a category 1 tropical storm to a category 2 hurricane in a process called rapid intensification - 'rapid intensification', a phenomenon whose frequency has doubled since it was recorded in historical times. In one day, Francine brought an entire month's worth of rain to New Orleans. It also caused many floods and cut off electricity for hundreds of thousands of people. On top of that, according to Yair, it lasted 10 days, instead of 5 days (the expected duration according to historical data on hurricanes in the United States). That is, the storms last longer, which increases the amount of water they drop and the risk to flood.
The storm 'Boris' that hit the east and center of Europe is not a tropical storm but a cyclonic system or a 'frontal trough'. Yair explains that "the contrast between the cold and dry arctic northern air flow and the humid southern winds caused a very deep depression with extreme amounts of rain. It is expected that we will receive [storms] like this more and more. What is unusual is the timing of the storm 'Boris', at the end This type of storm usually occurs earlier in the year when the sea surface temperature reaches its peak, which fueled the storm that developed over Europe in high humidity and, as a result, in the abnormal amount of precipitation that caused the river level to rise and the flooding and floods."
Storms in the Mediterranean region - what can we expect?
In the Mediterranean region we have no less powerful storms, such as Mediterranean tropical storms called 'Medicanes'. The last 'Medican' in our regions was the storm 'Daniel' about a year ago, in September 2023, which caused great damage and deaths in Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria and left thousands dead in Libya and Algeria. "Storm 'Daniel' was a hurricane that started in Greece and reached Libya," Yair points out, adding that although hurricanes are very uncommon, due to the warming of the Mediterranean Sea, at the end of the summer we see more and more such storms, at least once a year.
"Summer storms are going to be stronger, and winter storms will be fewer. But when they do happen, the fear is that they will be wilder," he says and warns that "the fear is that the nature of the rain in Israel will change in such a way that there will be very strong bursts of rain that will lead to floods, like a river disaster You watched in 2018, the disaster in Hatikva neighborhood in 2020 and the flood in Nahariya in 2022. The probability of extreme events will increase as a result of the entire climate change, especially here in the Middle East, a hotspot of climate change."
While we do not yet know the forecast for the coming winter, according to The report of the meteorological service, the summer of 2024 was the hottest on record at one degree warmer than average, and October and November are currently expected to be hotter and drier than normal.
Rising sea surface temperature: the fuel for the storms
'Cyclone', 'Hurricane', and 'Typhoon' are synonymous names for the same type of storm that occurs in the subtropics over warm oceans. In fact, every year, there is a 'typhoon season' and a time when storms hit many parts of the world. "The oceans are the fuel of the tropical storms, and during the late summer the sea surface temperature reaches its peak and causes typhoons in the Pacific Ocean, hurricanes in the Atlantic and cyclones in the Indian Ocean," says Yair. "Every year there are dozens of storms of various degrees in these basins. As the temperature of the sea surface rises, the amount of water vapor that rises into the atmosphere and condenses into clouds in these storms increases exponentially." He explains that according to the water vapor saturation equation, for every one degree Celsius increase in air temperature, the amount of water vapor increases by 7 percent. "Actually, the threshold temperature we define for the outbreak of hurricanes is 28 degrees Celsius, and in recent years we have exceeded it every summer, reaching 32-33 degrees Celsius in vast areas of the oceans. Therefore, it is almost inevitable that we will receive powerful and large storms."
What next?
Yair emphasizes that "the climate is in a disrupted state, and it is clear to us that this is due to the emission of greenhouse gases and the absorption of infra-red radiation in the atmosphere, which causes a rise in temperature. In the recorded history of measurements, such a radical and rapid change in the Earth's energy balance is reflected in the average temperature It wasn't. Does anyone else need to be convinced that this is humanity's contribution?"
According to him, the damage that we should pay attention to is not only that which is highlighted in the media, which usually points to the number of deaths as a result of the storms. "The parameter is the disruption caused to life in the near and far future - damage to agriculture and the food supply chains, to clean drinking water, the risk of an outbreak of tropical diseases due to the damage to the drainage and sewage systems and the environmental damage to nature and hundreds of thousands of animals." It is important to say that climate refugees will not only come from island countries that are going to disappear under the sea level, but departure due to the climate crisis may occur anywhere where the infrastructures will not withstand the natural disasters that will appear more and more often. "Not only are we experiencing rapid climate change, and extreme weather, but also that our infrastructure is not built for it, so we feel it much more strongly," says Yair.
Despite the extreme weather that afflicts many countries around the world, there may also be room for optimism. "I think the wake-up call has been received. Following 'Boris' and 'Yagi' and all these big storms, it is now clearer to everyone that there is a problem, and awareness is the first step in creating change in our dealing with the climate crisis," he concludes.
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