A tropical depression that formed in the southwestern Gulf on Tuesday is brewing over unusually warm waters for October — temperatures are about 3 degrees to 3.5 degrees higher than average for this time of year.
Shel Winkley, chief meteorologist for Climate Central, said the warm area where this disturbance is located was made 300 to 800 times more likely due to global warming.
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"Some of these ocean temperatures in the western Gulf would be almost virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change," he said, referring to people burning heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere.
And storms are fueled by these warmer waters. Winkley said it’s important to understand climate change’s fingerprint on weather events, especially when it comes to rapid intensification and how that can impact the way a community plans ahead.
“Maybe it's a certain category of hurricane, but then we see the storm exceed expectation because of the added warmth that's been boosted by climate change, and that really decreases our ability to either evacuate or prepare for a storm, and really changes how we interact with the storm altogether,” he said.
Higher surface temperatures also create more moisture because they allow for more evaporation.
“That means more rain-making moisture that's being loaded into this tropical system. And at that same time, warmer atmospheres hold more moisture,” Winkley said.
“You've got this bigger bucket and more water going into it. So, when you have a tropical system like this one that's forming in the Gulf, what that means is when it brings rainfall, that bucket's tipping a little bit more, and it's even tipping faster.”
The system is expected to drop between 4 and 6 inches of rain along the Gulf coast.
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Even with this latest activity in the Gulf, it's been a quiet Atlantic hurricane season so far, which is typical for the El Niño climate pattern we're in right now.
The phenomenon is when sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean become warmer than average, which actually breaks up storm activity in the Atlantic Ocean by creating more wind shear.
But Winkley said this is likely going to be the strongest El Niño we've experienced on record.
"We know that the bedrock that this El Niño was built on are the warmer oceans and the added heat that we as humans have put into the system,” he said.
While the Atlantic might be quieter on the storm front, the Pacific basin has in contrast recorded numerous hurricanes.
"We're a water planet and weather is tied together all across the globe. So, what's happening in one part of the world eventually can have an impact on what is or isn't happening in another part of the globe,” Winkley said.
It's a good reminder, he added, of how the emissions we release into the atmosphere impact the whole planet.
