Press Release – Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre

‘As this latest study A new study proves all coastal cities will suffer from increased rainfall amounts as Hurricanes/cyclones stay stronger longer after landfall than in past’ and finds that hurricanes are staying stronger longer after striking land than they did decades ago, and that means more destruction inland.

Hurricane Staying Power

Hurricanes are keeping their staying power longer once they make landfall, spreading more inland destruction, according to a new study.

Warmer ocean waters from climate change are likely making hurricanes lose power more slowly after landfall, because they act as a reserve fuel tank for moisture, the study found. With Hurricane Eta threatening Florida and the Gulf Coast in a few days, the study’s lead author warned of more damage away from the coast than in the past.

The new study looked at 71 Atlantic hurricanes with landfalls since 1967. It found that in the 1960s, hurricanes declined two-thirds in wind strength within 17 hours of landfall. But now it generally takes 33 hours for storms to weaken that same degree, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature..

There’s less study of what hurricanes do once they make landfall than out at sea, so Chakraborty said he was surprised when he saw a noticeable trend in decay taking longer. Before he started the study, Chakraborty said he figured the decline in power shouldn’t change over the years even with man-made climate change, because storms tend to lose strength when cut off from warm water that fuels them.

It stops going, like a car that runs out of gas, he said.

Researchers then simulated hurricanes that were identical except for water temperature. Seeing the warmer water storms decayed slower, they reached their conclusion: The trend showing a slowdown of hurricane decay resulted from warmer ocean water temperatures, caused by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

“That’s an amazing signal that they found,” said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate and hurricane scientist Jim Kossin, who wasn’t part of the study but did review it for the journal Nature.

This study joins previous studies, many by Kossin, that show tropical systems are slowing down more, wetter, moving more toward the poles — and that the strongest hurricanes are getting stronger.

“The postcard East coast sunshine City of Napier” just showed how devastating massive rail fall can cause such damage in such a short time and since then other regions such as Otago suffered significant damage recently with heavy floods causing the ruining of valuable export crops and property.

We at CEAC along with the public have been constantly advised that a sharp reduction in burning fossil fuels is needed to lower the CO2 levels of transport use.

CEAC has made many past references to this point, we have considered our best choice to lower transport climate emissions is by the use of rail freight not road freight for lowering climate emissions and an excellent example was back exactly just two months ago on Thursday, 12 November 2020, 10:14 am | Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre

CEAC Call On Government Take Climate Change Action Now As Time Is Short

‘As this latest study proves all coastal cities will suffer from increased rainfall amounts as Hurricanes/cyclones stay stronger longer after landfall than in past’. A new study finds that hurricanes are staying stronger longer after striking land … More >>

‘As this latest study proves all coastal cities will suffer from increased rainfall amounts as Hurricanes/cyclones stay stronger longer after landfall than in past’. A new study finds that hurricanes are staying stronger longer after striking land … More >>

Then CEAC in September we had supported the Green Party push for action on climate change mentioning to use rail.

Wednesday 30th September 2020, read this article also for our reference.

CEAC To Green Party Use Rail Freight Not On Road For Lowered Climate Emissions Air Pollution

In this plan , “Greens Announce Bold Plan To Ensure NZ Transport Tackles Climate Change” CEAC challenges Green Party to consider using ‘Rail Freight’ in large amounts now, to tackle ‘Climate Change’, as their policy does not explicitly … More >>

We must have this second term of a Labour Government take climate change action now not in the future as climate change is here now and needs urgent swift action.

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