The seaboard of Southeastern American states has always been prone to dangers imposed by hurricanes. Hurricanes can form several times a year, typically originating off of the coast of Africa, in the Cape Verde area, and travelling North over the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico before hitting the United States. According to CBS News, “The Atlantic hurricane season begins on 1st June and runs through to the 30th of November with the Atlantic basin averaging about seven hurricanes and three major hurricanes a year,” making residents susceptible to damage and creating an imminent concern as climate change rates worsen.
Interestingly, there is not as clear of a pattern for hurricane frequency in the US as first thought. Contrary to popular belief, hurricane frequency is not increasing in an assumed manner but instead there is a global increase in the proportion of intense hurricanes. It has been well documented by the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that climate change is causing hurricanes to occur with a higher frequency of intensity, due to a variety of factors. As the oceans warm due to the enhanced greenhouse effect, more energy is provided for storms, leading to the formation of more intense hurricanes. This is amplified by the fact that warmer oceans retain more moisture, intensifying the rainfall. Effects such as this were seen during Hurricane Helene, with the worst flooding, most intense precipitation and highest river levels seen across the region. If climate change continues to worsen and cause increased rainfall levels and flooding, groundwater storage levels will be oversaturated meaning there will be greater surface runoff and a resultant increase in flooding. This creates what can be known as a “positive feedback loop” or a “snowball effect”, where the initial floods make flooding more likely – subsequently leading to a “loop” of worsened flooding.
On a grander scale, this demonstrates one of the key issues that is increasing the rate of global warming today. As initial conditions deteriorate, the resulting conditions are becoming unmanageable, making climate change and its consequences increasingly more difficult to mitigate. The BBC reports that there are some claims that “climate change caused over 50% more rainfall during Hurricane Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas”. Furthermore, “cyclones similar to Hurricane Helene are up to 20% wetter over the south-east of the US and up to 7% windier in Florida’s Gulf today compared to the past.” Taking this into consideration, extreme weather is now a regular occurrence and a significant humanitarian and economic threat to nations such as the United States. This provokes many questions regarding the future environmental situation of the country.
For one, many of the major concerns surrounding future efforts against climate change and extreme weather are about government support and policies. As a global superpower, the United States is better equipped than lower or lower-middle income countries to prepare for, and manage, future extreme weather. After one of Kenya’s worst droughts, in early May, extreme flooding resulted in the death of 225 people and over 212,630 people have been displaced across the country. There is a potential pattern emerging where global attention to extreme weather – as a result of climate change – is only given when high-income countries are adversely affected, even though this is nowhere near the same extent of damage caused when compared to smaller economy countries.
This is a concern for the future as it raises this particular question: will global powers such as NATO and the G7 members be more likely to take action only when the effects and fears become a reality for citizens in wealthy countries?
It must also be noted that, even within the dominant nations, the problem of stability and capacity to cope with future events caused by global warming is being raised. When considering the current political climate of the United States, the highly-polarised political environment concerning how to deal with such issues does not encourage any certainty about this effort to mitigate climate change. Natural disasters used to be a bipartisan issue for many in the United States where the law-makers from each party would put aside their differences to help the victims of the devastation caused by these ever more powerful hurricanes. However, the climate change argument has become politicised, particularly by right-wing MAGA Republicans, through the spread of misinformation.
Ron DeSantis, the current republican governor of Florida, has been criticised widely for his lack of response to Hurricane Helene with Vice-President Harris accusing DeSantis of “ignoring the White House’s calls surrounding recovery efforts” following Hurricane Helene. Since 1851, 120 out of 292 hurricanes in the United States have struck Florida, making it the state with the highest number of hurricanes. Furthermore, Marjorie Taylor Greene, loyal Trump supporter and far-right representative from Georgia, who blamed a California wildfire on “Jewish space lasers” in 2018, recently tweeted: “Yes they can control the weather.” Although, she could not say who ‘they’ were in this case.” The deleterious effects of climate change on people’s lives are becoming increasingly more concerning and frequent. Falsehoods such as the ones above can only further exacerbate the misery the victims of these natural disasters experience by engendering a sense of mistrust in the government when people are financially vulnerable.
Consequently, if governments are becoming less effective at managing the devastating effects of such extreme weather, there is growing concern for the ability to mitigate climate change globally.