12 hours Ago By John Wheeler
FARGO — Is the Hurricane Helene disaster in Florida and North Carolina a direct result of global climate change? Certainly the increase in sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico and around the world combined with the increase in atmospheric humidity are a result of the ongoing global climate change. However, hurricane disasters like this have happened before. In August 1969, Category 5 Hurricane Camille destroyed the Mississippi coastline at Gulfport and Biloxi, then moved inland, weakened and dumped extreme rainfall on the mountainous parts of western Virginia.
No single storm should be blamed on climate change. Instead, look at the dramatically rising frequency of storm disasters. A warmer world is a more humid world with an atmosphere more juiced and more ready to dump too much precipitation in too little a time.
If global temperatures continue to rise as projected by climate models, flooding will continue to happen more frequently and continue to cost more and more..
