![]() Ultimately the study found that relatively little time-about five minutes per average human day-goes to activities that directly alter the environment and climate change, such as extracting energy and dealing with waste, suggesting an opportunity to put in more time to help the planet. Activities such as agriculture took up much more time in poorer countries than in wealthier ones, whereas others such as human transportation were fairly constant everywhere. Scientists recently compiled the available data about how people around the world allocate their time and used them to define the average “global human day.” More than a third of our hours are spent in bed, they found, with the rest split among three categories the researchers devised based on whether the time directly affected humans, the physical world, or where and what people are doing. “All of this is just confirming what we expected,” Camargo said.Every human on Earth has the same 24 hours to spend in a day-but the way we divide those hours for work and sleep and school and play varies a lot. Rapid intensification has been historically hard to predict, but with climate change making oceans warmer, scientists are confident it is a phenomenon that will occur more often. And, concerningly, scientists found significant intensification was happening to the strongest storms, making the most life-threatening hurricanes even more dangerous. ![]() Rapid melting in West Antarctica is ‘unavoidable,’ with potentially disastrous consequences for sea level rise, study findsĪ recent study found that Atlantic hurricanes may now be more than twice as likely to strengthen from a weak Category 1 storm to a major Category 3 in a 24-hour period than they were between 19.Ī 2019 study found that between the 1980s and early 200s, Atlantic hurricanes showed a “highly unusual” increase in rapid intensification – a trend the report said could only be explained by human-caused climate change. West Antarctica - home to the Thwaites Glacier, also known as the "Doomsday glacier" - is the continent's largest contributor to global sea level rise. The alarming rapid intensification trend has also been reported in the Atlantic. “But we have an El Niño year, which makes the eastern north Pacific Ocean more active than normal, and on top of that you have anthropogenic climate change,” Camargo said. Only one hurricane, Category 1 Hurricane Max in 2017, has made landfall within 50 miles of Acapulco, according to a CNN analysis of NOAA data. “It’s very rare for intense storms to make landfall in Mexico’s eastern Pacific side,” Camargo told CNN. Tropical storms usually take several days to grow into powerful hurricanes, but with human-caused climate change, rapid intensification is becoming a more common occurrence, said Suzana Camargo, hurricane expert and professor at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “It’s unfortunate it happened right before making landfall, but if this had occurred over the open ocean, it still would have been very remarkable.” ![]() Otis’ strengthening “was extremely unusual,” McNoldy told CNN. In addition, an El Niño is growing in the Pacific this year, driving ocean temperatures even higher. More than 90% of warming around the globe over the past 50 years has taken place in the oceans, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Hurricane Otis’ Category 5 ‘nightmare scenario’ strike knocks out all communications in Acapulco, Mexico Hurricane Otis is seen late Tuesday ahead of landfall. Otis “took full advantage of a warm patch of ocean” that was roughly 88 degrees Fahrenheit, said Brian McNoldy, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Miami – more than enough ocean heat to fuel a monster storm. The National Hurricane Center said Otis strengthened so fast on Tuesday that it had “explosively intensified.” Scientists have defined it as a wind speed increase of at least 35 mph in 24 hours or less, and it generally requires significant ocean heat. The term rapid intensification refers to when a storm’s winds strengthen rapidly over a short amount of time. Only one other storm, Hurricane Patricia in 2015, exceeded Otis’ rapid intensification in East Pacific records, with a 120-mph increase in 24 hours. ![]() The hurricane’s intensification was among the fastest forecasters have ever seen: its top-end windspeed increased by 115 mph in 24 hours. When it happens right before landfall, as it did with Otis, it can catch coastal communities by surprise with little time to prepare. The rapid intensification Hurricane Otis underwent in the hours before it slammed into southern Mexico is a symptom of the human-caused climate crisis, scientists say – and one that is becoming more frequent.
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