From Ike to Florence, storms reveal change
The recent news coverage of Hurricane Florence probably reminds many Miami Valley residents of Hurricane Ike, which tore through here 10 years ago this month. Sustained winds of 70 mph combined with a widespread power outages to create a truly unusual weather event for this area.
I don’t think I was alone in thinking back then that Ohio would be the last place impacted by a tropical hurricane. I had just moved to Yellow Springs and was shocked to discover several crushed cars and other damage the day after the storm. Local residents expressed disbelief that such a storm had just blasted through our area.
It all began when a tropical depression went through a period of quick intensification and turned in to “Tropical Storm Ike.” On Sept. 3, 2008, Ike began a 24-hour period of rapid growth that saw its winds increase from 85 mph to a peak of 145 mph, eventually making landfall on Galveston Island, Texas, early on Sept. 13. Ike curved northeast once inland and eventually came through this area on Sept. 14.
A state of emergency was declared in Ohio. Damages in this state were originally estimated at $553 million, with 131,000 insurance claims filed in the first few days after the storm, according to The Columbus Dispatch. The total damage in Ohio exceeded $1.1 billion, tying the 1974 Xenia tornado as the costliest storm in state history.
Many Dayton-area residents were without power after the storm, some for days. In Yellow Springs, several of us spent the evening at the Young’s Dairy restaurant since it was one of the few places in that area to have access to power that night.
“Are hurricanes getting worse?” This was the headline on a recent article in The Guardian. The editors explain that the two common measures used to judge whether hurricanes are becoming worse are the number of storms per year and the strength of each storm. Meteorologists use the Accumulated Cyclone Energy Index to account for the strength, frequency and duration of storms per year. They also use the term “rapid intensification” to describe a storm that increases its maximum sustained winds by at least 35 mph within a 24-hour period.
The Guardian article’s conclusion is that the increase in the number and the strength of recent storms can be attributed to human-induced climate change. As a result, the world’s oceans continue to warm at a fast rate, which means hurricanes are more likely.
Hurricanes draw their energy from deep in the ocean. The temperature at these depths has gone up considerably since 1970. Warmer waters have made the speed at which hurricanes intensify much greater.
Much of the recent media attention seems to have been on evacuating residents in the path of the hurricane. Shouldn’t there also be more awareness of how to combat climate change? Last year was the hottest on record, and the clear majority of scientists believe that this warming is because of human-related activity, such as excess carbon in the atmosphere.
Many promising low-carbon energy alternatives are available now; could they help re-vitalize the economies of Midwestern states? Food for thought.