Residents drive north on Interstate Highway 55 near Magnolia, Mississippi, as they evacuate away from New Orleans on August 28, 2021 before the arrival of Hurricane Ida. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)
Experts Warn of 'Potentially Catastrophic' Destruction as Hurricane Ida Reaches New Orleans
The storm is expected to be one of the strongest ever to hit Louisiana, rivaling Hurricane Laura in 2020.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Weather experts on Sunday said their worst-case-scenario predictions about Hurricane Ida, which damaged homes and knocked down trees in Cuba on Friday, appeared to be coming true as the tropical cyclone made its way towards New Orleans with winds rushing at 150 miles per hour.
"Monster storms cause enormous damage not only because of their winds," wrote Tom Yulsman, director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and a blogger for the magazine. "They also dump unimaginable amounts of water. And research shows that thanks to climate change, they've been getting wetter."
Yulsman continued:
That's happening for a number of reasons. First, a warmer atmosphere can carry more moisture. Research shows that for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture. So far, the globe has warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.
On Twitter, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe said the question of whether the climate crisis "causes" hurricanes like Ida is "the wrong question."
"The right one is, 'How much worse did climate change make it?" Hayhoe said.
"Given that science has already showed that a warmer ocean and other aspects of climate change are leading to much faster intensification of hurricanes," Hayhoe added, "the question today is not, to paraphrase climate scientist Kevin Trenberth, how could climate change affect this event--but rather how could it NOT, as it is occurring over the massively altered background conditions of our 1.1C warmer planet."
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This is a developing story and may be updated.
Weather experts on Sunday said their worst-case-scenario predictions about Hurricane Ida, which damaged homes and knocked down trees in Cuba on Friday, appeared to be coming true as the tropical cyclone made its way towards New Orleans with winds rushing at 150 miles per hour.
"Monster storms cause enormous damage not only because of their winds," wrote Tom Yulsman, director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and a blogger for the magazine. "They also dump unimaginable amounts of water. And research shows that thanks to climate change, they've been getting wetter."
Yulsman continued:
That's happening for a number of reasons. First, a warmer atmosphere can carry more moisture. Research shows that for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture. So far, the globe has warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.
On Twitter, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe said the question of whether the climate crisis "causes" hurricanes like Ida is "the wrong question."
"The right one is, 'How much worse did climate change make it?" Hayhoe said.
"Given that science has already showed that a warmer ocean and other aspects of climate change are leading to much faster intensification of hurricanes," Hayhoe added, "the question today is not, to paraphrase climate scientist Kevin Trenberth, how could climate change affect this event--but rather how could it NOT, as it is occurring over the massively altered background conditions of our 1.1C warmer planet."
This is a developing story and may be updated.
Weather experts on Sunday said their worst-case-scenario predictions about Hurricane Ida, which damaged homes and knocked down trees in Cuba on Friday, appeared to be coming true as the tropical cyclone made its way towards New Orleans with winds rushing at 150 miles per hour.
"Monster storms cause enormous damage not only because of their winds," wrote Tom Yulsman, director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and a blogger for the magazine. "They also dump unimaginable amounts of water. And research shows that thanks to climate change, they've been getting wetter."
Yulsman continued:
That's happening for a number of reasons. First, a warmer atmosphere can carry more moisture. Research shows that for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7 percent more moisture. So far, the globe has warmed by about 1.1 degrees Celsius since preindustrial times.
On Twitter, climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe said the question of whether the climate crisis "causes" hurricanes like Ida is "the wrong question."
"The right one is, 'How much worse did climate change make it?" Hayhoe said.
"Given that science has already showed that a warmer ocean and other aspects of climate change are leading to much faster intensification of hurricanes," Hayhoe added, "the question today is not, to paraphrase climate scientist Kevin Trenberth, how could climate change affect this event--but rather how could it NOT, as it is occurring over the massively altered background conditions of our 1.1C warmer planet."