Super Typhoon Ragasa: scientists warn climate change leads to stronger storms

Super Typhoon Ragasa, which lashed Hong Kong and the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Wednesday, has drawn warnings from scientists that climate change is making such storms more frequent.

Benjamin Horton, dean of the school of energy and environment at City University of Hong Kong, said: “Climate scientists know better than anyone else that these events should not be happening at such regularity, so late in the season, of such intensity, of such high winds and of such big storm surges. The attribution of why this event is occurring is climate change.”

He said super typhoons were becoming more common, adding: “There is just more energy. Climate change means that the intensification – how rapidly they go from a storm to a super typhoon – is quicker.

“With climate change [typhoons] are more likely to stall along the coast. Because they have got more energy, they do not move inland like previous typhoons would do, lose their strength and basically filter out. Nowadays, they can sit over the coastline and deliver colossal amounts of rain.”

Typhoons were increasing in size due to warmer ocean temperatures, a direct consequence of climate change, Horton said.

Average temperatures in the Pacific Ocean have risen by about 1.5 degrees Celsius in the past century, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

South China Morning Post