The fingerprint of climate change was unmistakable on record-breaking Hurricane Helene, scientists say.
Multiple analyses have arrived at that conclusion since Helene roared through the southeastern United States at the end of September. They say the deadly storm was significantly stronger and wetter than it would have been in a world without global warming.
The latest and most rigorous study was released Wednesday by the climate science consortium World Weather Attribution, which specializes in assessing the links between global warming and extreme weather events. It finds that climate change raised Helene’s wind speeds and rainfall, as well as the ocean temperatures that fueled its rapid intensification.
“We found essentially all aspects of this event were amplified by climate change to different degrees, and we’ll see more of the same as the world continues to warm,” said Ben Clarke, a researcher at Imperial College London and one of the study’s authors, at a press briefing on Tuesday.
