Posted on February 8, 2022
A trend toward rapidly intensifying, powerful hurricanes in recent years is spurring experts to examine more closely how to prepare communities to better withstand such violent weather, Andrew Freedman writes in Axios Generate.
Driving the news: The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded about $13 million over four years to Florida International University’s (FIU) Extreme Events Institute to support the design of what is essentially a “Category 6” storm simulator.
- The grant will allow FIU to create a testing facility capable of producing winds of up to 200 mph, complete with a water basin to simulate storm surge and wave activity.
Why it matters: Tropical cyclones, known in the tropical Atlantic and eastern Pacific as hurricanes, are intensifying as the oceans and atmosphere warm in response to human emissions of greenhouse gases.
- As storms get stronger, they are capable of inflicting more damage to homes and critical infrastructure along the coast, where the strongest winds and worst storm-surge flooding occurs, and also well inland through heavy rainfall.
Context: Currently, the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale goes from Category 1 through 5, maxing out when a storm’s top sustained winds go above 155 mph.
- Yet many storms have intensified so significantly that they might as well be called Category 6 storms, though the broad meteorological community has not rallied around a push to add another number.
