Hurricanes Over Warming Waters – Like Harvey – to Keep Getting Worse, Study Says

Hurricanes occurring over warming waters that surround the U.S. will just keep getting worse, according to a new study that suggested a hotter-than-normal Gulf of Mexico supercharged Hurricane Harvey last August.

The study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research gave scientists the opportunity to examine how Hurricane Harvey fed off the heat in the ocean basin and the findings are unsettling.

At the time, waters in the Gulf were at record high temperatures and fueled vast stores of moisture as Harvey plowed into the Texas Coast, the NCAR study said. When the hurricane stalled near Houston, resulting rains broke precipitation records and led to the devastating flooding.

"The implication is that the warmer oceans increased the risk of greater hurricane intensity and duration," said lead author Kevin Trenberth, an NCAR senior scientist, adding that the oceans "play a critical role and will shape future storms as the climate changes."

The study highlighted the increased threat of future supercharged hurricanes due to climate change, Trenberth said.

The key points of the NCAR study were:

• Ocean heat content was highest on record just before northern summer of 2017, supercharging Atlantic hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria
• The Gulf of Mexico ocean heat loss during Harvey matched the latent heat released by Harvey rainfall, and thereby fueled the storm
• Essential adaptation to the natural hazards and climate change is not happening in many vulnerable areas, with major consequences

Temperatures on the sea surface are expected to stay warmer than usual across most of the ocean and normal to above normal over the main developmental region, where more than 85 percent of tropical storms start, the study said

Forecasters predict an above average active hurricane season this year, which runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.

Researchers say 14 to 18 named tropical storms and hurricanes could form in the Atlantic basin in 2018, Inhabit reported.

Of those, six to eight storms are expected to become hurricanes and three to five of those are expected to grow into major hurricanes.

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