{"id":104112,"date":"2025-10-27T22:00:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104112\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T22:00:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T22:00:07","slug":"warming-oceans-probably-fueling-hurricane-melissas-rapid-intensification-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/104112\/","title":{"rendered":"Warming oceans probably fueling Hurricane Melissa\u2019s rapid intensification | Hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The extraordinary intensification of Hurricane Melissa, set to be one of the strongest storms to ever hit Jamaica<\/a>, is probably a symptom of the rapid heating of the world\u2019s oceans, scientists have said.<\/p>\n

Melissa was a tropical storm on Saturday, before exploding in strength to a category 4 hurricane early on Sunday. The storm\u2019s winds escalated from 70mph to 140mph in just a day, one of the fastest intensifications on record in the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

On Monday morning, the US\u2019s National Hurricane Center upgraded Melissa further to a category 5 storm, with winds of up to 160mph (260km\/h). The hurricane is inching slowly towards Jamaica, where it is feared it will cause catastrophic flooding and landslides, before crossing Cuba and the Bahamas by Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Scientists say this is the fourth storm in the Atlantic this year to undergo rapid intensification of its wind speed and power. This sort of intensification has been linked to the human-caused climate crisis, which is causing oceans to become hotter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat part of the Atlantic is extremely warm right now \u2013 around 30C [86F], which is 2 to 3C above normal,\u201d said Akshay Deoras, a meteorologist at the University of Reading, in the United Kingdom. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not just the surface. The deeper layers of the ocean are also unusually warm, providing a vast reservoir of energy for the storm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, the world\u2019s oceans were the warmest on record<\/a>, continuing a recent trend of record-breaking marine heat. Climate Central, a climate non-profit, has said<\/a> that the extra heat in the Atlantic has been made about 700 times more likely due to the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and other human activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is fundamentally changing our weather,\u201d said Bernadette Woods Placky, chief meteorologist at Climate Central, a US-based research group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does not mean that every single tropical cyclone is going to go through rapid or super-rapid intensification. However, in our warmer world, it will continue to increase the likelihood of storms going through rapid and super-rapid intensification,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

A 2023 study<\/a> had found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events.<\/p>\n

Climate scientists have long warned that warming oceans \u2013 driven by greenhouse gas emissions \u2013 are making such explosive storm development more common. \u201cWe\u2019re living in a warmer world, and that means hurricanes are more likely to intensify quickly, especially near coastlines,\u201d Deoras said.<\/p>\n

The impact of climate change is putting lives at risk on islands and in coastal areas, Placky said. \u201cWith 90% of our extra heat going into our oceans, we\u2019re seeing these oceans warm and they\u2019re rising. And that plays out with sea level rise. So even outside of any storm, the water levels are getting higher. They\u2019re creeping away at our coastlines and they\u2019re going farther inland,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A storm like Melissa only compounds these impacts, according to Placky. \u201cThese storms are really ripping away at the coastal infrastructure of these islands,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) predicted a busier-than-usual Atlantic hurricane season this year, with 13 to 18 named storms, five to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes. After a slow start, that has been largely accurate so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The extraordinary intensification of Hurricane Melissa, set to be one of the strongest storms to ever hit Jamaica,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-104112","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}