TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (Diya TV) — A new study by an international team of researchers says human-caused climate change was responsible for exacerbating Hurricane Milton, which struck Florida last month. Global warming researchers with World Weather Attribution said the storm’s wind speeds increased by about 10% and boosted its rainfall by 20% to 30%.
Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane, dropping nearly 19 inches of rain in places such as St. Petersburg, spawning what meteorologists called a 1-in-500-year flood. Warmer-than-normal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, where climate change is known to be growing, helped spur the storm’s rapid intensification from a tropical depression to a Category 5 hurricane in 48 hours when its winds reached an estimated 180 mph.
According to the analysis, such extreme weather events have become more likely because of this 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) jump in global temperatures since the mid-19th century. The research also found that the conditions that enabled Milton’s strength were 400 to 800 times more likely owing to climate change .
