‘Dangerous new reality’: Hurricane Melissa strength multiplied by climate crisis, study says

Melissa caused widespread devastation when it struck Jamaica as a category 5 hurricane on October 28, with winds up to 300km/h. Photo: AP/Matias Delacroix

Every aspect of Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever to hit Jamaica, was worsened by the climate crisis, a team of scientists has found.

Melissa caused widespread devastation when it struck Jamaica as a category 5 hurricane on October 28, with winds up to 300km/h.

Winds of Melissa’s strength are now five times more frequent due to the climate crisis, the research said. The storm wiped out homes, businesses, crops and livelihoods, causing damage estimated to be equivalent to around a third of the island nation’s GDP.

The hurricane displaced hundreds of thousands of people as it continued on to hit Cuba, with its ferocious winds causing damage as far as the Dominican Republic and Haiti. At least 61 people have died as a result.

The savage strength of Melissa was exacerbated by the overheated air and ocean, caused by the heat-trapping emissions from burning fossil fuels, an international team of scientists has determined.

Climate change increased Melissa’s maximum wind speeds by 7% and extreme rainfall by 16%, the team at World Weather Attribution, a consortium of 20 researchers from the US, UK, Sweden, Dominican Republic, Netherlands, Jamaica and Cuba, found.

The storm wiped out homes, businesses, crops and livelihoods, causing damage estimated to be equivalent to around a third of the island nation’s GDP. Photo: Orlagh Kilbride/PA

Events such as the five days of pounding rainfall in Jamaica from Melissa are now about 30% more intense and twice as likely due to today’s altered climate, which is about 1.3C hotter, globally, than the pre-industrial average, the analysis found.

Global heating has made the atmospheric and marine conditions behind such extreme events six times more likely.

Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and one of the authors of the study, said:

What we see with Hurricane Melissa and other recent monster storms is that they are becoming so intense that they will soon push millions of people beyond the limits of adaptation.

“Unless we stop burning coal, oil and gas, we will see more and more countries reaching these limits.” 

Melissa is just the latest example of a major storm suddenly picking up strength with unusual speed. This “rapid intensification” was particularly pronounced with this hurricane, with Melissa’s wind speeds shooting up from 110km/h to 220km/m in just one day.

This process is a hallmark of a warming climate, scientists have found, with storms able to feed upon heat in the ocean and atmosphere to become more fierce. Melissa crawled slowly over seas that were nearly 1.5C hotter than the long-term norm, gaining a brutal strength it then unleashed upon Jamacia.

“Hurricane Melissa’s catastrophic landfall in Jamaica is not an anomaly, it is the canary in the coal mine,” said Jayaka Campbell, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica.

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“When a storm can explosively intensify in less than three days over ocean waters that are 1.5C warmer than normal, we are witnessing the dangerous new reality of our warming world.” 

The huge task of cleaning up and rebuilding from a storm that caused around $6bn in damages to Jamaica has again highlighted the vexed question of international climate finance. 

For years, developing, climate-vulnerable countries have urged richer nations to contribute funds to help them with the heatwaves, storms and droughts that these less wealthy places have done little to cause.

- The Guardian

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