“Florida has had 119 hurricanes since 1850, but the last one was due to climate change” titled information & banner is been spread on social media for the past few years.
Florida has had 119 hurricanes since 1850, but the last one was due to climate change.
— Tony Heller (@Tony__Heller) September 13, 2017
Fact Check
From the investigation by the Rumor Scanner team, it has been discovered that climate change does not cause hurricanes rather it could make hurricanes more intense.
By using the keyword search method, we found two fact check reports published by AFP & Politifact.
Actually, Hurricanes are tropical storms that form in the Atlantic Ocean with wind speeds of at least 119 kilometers (74 miles) per hour. From 1851 to 2004, 109 hurricanes have been recorded in the US. Florida ranks first among all states in the US for the number of hurricanes.
But several hurricanes researchers have disagreed with the claim that climate change causes hurricanes rather could make them more severe.
Tom Knutson, the senior scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, told AFP that “models project that globally the fraction of hurricanes that reach category four or five levels will increase with global warming (by about 13 percent for two degrees C global warming scenario).
Suzana Camargo, a research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University told Politifact that, “The way we think about climate change impact on extremes, including hurricanes is that climate change from human activity can modify their characteristics. For example, the most intense hurricanes occur more often, or the precipitation associated with particular hurricanes increases.” As for climate change’s effect specifically on Florida hurricanes, “it is hard to make the assessment on a specific region, as the sample size is small,” she added.
Climate change is not the cause of hurricanes, because hurricanes occur naturally, said Kevin Trenberth, a distinguished scholar at the National Center of Atmospheric Research. “But climate change alters the ocean and atmosphere environment to make them more active. This can and is manifested in several ways: more intensity, bigger, longer-lasting, and perhaps more hurricanes.”
Phil Klotzbach, the research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, said “we don’t expect to see more hurricanes in the future due to climate change — in fact, we actually see fewer — but the warmer water temperatures may lead to stronger storms in the future.” “These trends may be hard to detect for many years to come, especially for landfalling hurricanes”, he added.
So, according to the experts, climate change is not causing hurricanes though they say it’s a possible cause of making hurricanes more intense.
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- Claim Review: Florida has had 119 hurricanes since 1850, but the last one was due to climate change
- Claimed By: Social Media Users
- Fact Check: False
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Source
- AFP: https://factcheck.afp.com/http%253A%252F%252Fdoc.afp.com%252F9MV3DZ?fbclid=IwAR0syvYX8ZKxIUs8cildR44faBN-J9vylz8r5d1eeWeW_ABwL6M7hZvSxto
- Politi Fact: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/sep/13/viral-image/experts-say-climate-change-can-make-hurricanes-mor/
- National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/topics/hurricane/?q=&page=1&per_page=25
- NOAA: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/NWS-TPC-4.pdf
- NOAA: https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E19.html