Hurricane Beryl was amplified by ‘crazy’ ocean temperatures, experts say | Hurricanes

Hurricane Beryl, which hit Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, has been amplified by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel more severe storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.

Beryl left more than 2 million people without power after making landfall near Houston as a Category 1 storm, after ravaging the Caribbean as a Category 5 hurricane, with wind speeds reaching 165 mph, killing 11 people.

There has never been a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic this early in the year, with most major storms forming around September. However, Beryl quickly escalated from a minor storm to a Category 4 event in just two days.

The deadly intensification was aided by unusually high ocean temperatures along much of Beryl’s path, scientists say, with seawater heated by the climate crisis helping to provide the storm with extra energy over the past 10 days.

“It would be surprising if beryl formation were happening anyway, but its formation in June is completely unprecedented,” said Brian McNoldy, a climate scientist at the University of Miami. “It’s just remarkable to see sea temperatures that warm.”

“I don’t think anyone could have expected such an exceptional event to occur, it has exceeded all expectations. With an ocean influenced by climate change, we are making extreme storms like this more likely.”

While ocean temperatures around the world have been steadily rising as the planet warms due to the burning of fossil fuels, the past year has been “off the charts,” according to McNoldy. Last year was the hottest on record for oceans, with marine heatwaves sweeping across 90 percent of the world’s oceans. The heat surge has been virtually unabated, with sea surface temperature records falling every day for 12 straight months through March.

A portion of the tropical Atlantic that stretches from Central America to Africa, called the principal development region, is the primary spawning area for most hurricanes, and that portion has been “incredibly warm” in recent weeks, McNoldy said. In some parts of the North Atlantic, temperatures have been as much as 5 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in the past month.

Ocean temperatures in the region typically peak in September or October, but the extra heat has led to unusually early conditions this year. “In the Caribbean, the temperature has actually been warmer than its usual peak since mid-May, which is absolutely crazy,” McNoldy said. “If the ocean already looks like it’s at the peak of hurricane season, we’re going to have peak hurricanes.”

At the same time, temperatures in much of the Gulf of Mexico are “as warm as a bathtub,” said Alex DaSilva, AccuWeather’s senior hurricane expert. “These warm waters are at the surface and extend hundreds of feet down. Warm waters act like fuel for hurricanes, and it won’t be long before temperatures rise again after Beryl.”

Persistently warm ocean temperatures point to a potentially disastrous hurricane season. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration is predicting eight to 13 hurricanes through November, up from the usual seven. The onset of periodic La Niña weather patterns could further fuel these storms. “Beryl is an ominous omen for the rest of the season,” McNoldy said. “This won’t be the last of these storms.”

Climate change isn’t necessarily increasing the total number of hurricanes, but scientists have found evidence that storms are becoming more violent, gaining strength faster, and even moving more slowly. Hurricanes are getting their power from warming oceans, while also triggering more intense rains because of the extra moisture trapped in Earth’s atmosphere by global warming.

Rising ocean temperatures pose new threats not only to devastating hurricanes – some scientists want to see a new “Category 6” classification added to storms above 192 mph – but also to the vast web of life, including humanity, that depends on the ocean that covers 70% of the planet.

The oceans absorb vast amounts of human-generated emissions and heat, which protects people on land from even more severe temperature increases, but also distorts fish populations, dissolves coral reefs and shellfish, starves the seas of oxygen, and potentially disrupts fundamental ocean currents.

Scientists warn that these dramatic changes will have consequences for the oceans that extend far beyond the human lifespan. “The time scale of the oceans is not as rapid as the time scale of the atmosphere,” Celeste Saulo, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, said earlier this year. “Once a change is established, I would say it is almost irreversible on time scales of centennials to millennia.”