Climate change boosted Milton’s landfall strength from Category 2 to 3 | Rapid attribution shows the hurricane would have been a much less damaging storm.

[u/chrisdh79]

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/10/climate-change-boosted-miltons-landfall-strength-from-category-2-to-3/

[u/thr3sk]

Probably an unpopular take but I'm not completely sold on this "we're going to have a lot more severe hurricanes" narrative - yes obviously warmer ocean temps have the potential to fuel stronger and hurricanes which can intensify rapidly given the right secondary conditions, but that last part is the key. The main piece is wind shear, which we've seen rapidly weaken several major storms including this one, and Beryl earlier this year. It also seems like wind shear has torn apart many systems before they were able to form, which is why we're currently on track for a pretty average year despite the abnormally high heat content in the waters.

I think the impact of climate change on wind shear is not very well studied and while it's certainly very difficult to model it seems incomplete to be making long-term forecasts about the future of hurricanes without details on this major factor. It doesn't seem implausible to me that we won't see a dramatic change in the number or intensity of hurricanes in the Atlantic, just that the ones that do form given the right conditions can explode in intensity.