Hurricanes will receive a new category (video)

Hurricanes are out of control due to their intensity. Scientists even propose changing their classification.

Too strong ones will go into the category of “mega-hurricanes”. About it reports The Guardian, citing the publication of a new research in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The standard Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, in place since the 1970s, has five categories, but scientists want to introduce a sixth to classify cyclones that are too strong. It is expected to include hurricanes with sustained winds exceeding 309 km/h. Researchers say they have recorded five such “mega-hurricanes” over the past 10 years, and their number may only increase in the future due to global warming:

“Global warming is leading to more intense tropical cyclones. Using Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale is increasingly inadequate for transmitting wind risk to the world.”

Tropical cyclones of the fifth category are intense and destructive: Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans in 2005, and Puerto Rico was damaged by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

However, there are even more destructive and dangerous cyclones that require a special category. These include, in particular, Typhoon Haiyan, which in 2013 killed six thousand people in the Philippines. Tropical “Patricia” near Mexico in 2015 was also a “megahurricane”: it reached a speed of 346 km/h and claimed 13 lives.

A new category of hurricanes was proposed by American scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. According to their table:

1. The first category should include hurricanes with a speed of 119-153 km/h,
2. to the second – 154-177 km/h,
3. to the third – 178-208 km/h.,
4. the fourth category should include tropical cyclones with wind speeds up to 251 km/h,
5. The fifth category should include hurricanes with a speed of 252-309 km/h,
6. The sixth category should concern those hurricanes whose winds have a speed of 309 km/h.

Michael Wenner, co-author of the study, says the new category will help better describe the degree of danger hurricanes pose to people, as well as the increased risks caused by the climate crisis. He emphasized:

“Our main goal is to raise awareness that climate change is causing more severe storms.”

This is not the first time that scientists have sounded the alarm about global warming. The UN said that 2023 was the hottest year on record.

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