Dorian, Climate Change, Bahamas: InsideClimate

Climate scientists have warned that climate change is picking up pace, with warmer temperatures, more rainfall and systems that linger over coastal areas damage. For example, Hurricane Dorian hit the northern Bahamas on September 1, slowing to 1 mile per hour with a storm surge of 23 feet and sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, reports Bob Berwyn for InsideClimate News. A study from NASA and NOAA shows that average forward speed of hurricanes has decreased by 17 percent since 1944. “The researchers don't understand exactly why tropical storms are stalling more, but they think it's caused by a general slowdown of atmospheric circulation (global winds), both in the tropics, where the systems form, and in the mid-latitudes, where they hit land and cause damage,” Berwyn writes, noting researchers suggest that global atmospheric circulation is slowing. Warming oceans slow winds that move hurricanes. Global warming inevitably promises more record weather events of every type. – YaleGlobal