Climate change fueled extreme rainfall during the record 2020 hurricane reason

Philadelphia firefighters walk through a flooded neighborhood in August of 2020.

Matt Slocum/AP

One of the most active North Atlantic hurricanes on record in 2020 was caused by human-caused climate change, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

The impact of human activity on climate change was analyzed in the study. When compared to hurricanes that took place in the pre-industrial era in 1850, it was found that the totals were up to 10% higher.

Kevin Reed, who led the study, said that the impacts of climate change are already here.

There were 30 named storms in the 2020 season. Twelve of them made it to the continental U.S.

Powerful storms are damaging and the economic costs are staggering.

Warm ocean temperatures are linked to Hurricanes. Human emissions of greenhouse gases have raised both land and ocean temperatures over the last century.

Reed, associate professor and associate dean of research at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, says that the findings show that human-caused climate change is leading to more and quicker rainfall, which can hurt coastal communities.

Reed said that hurricanes are devastating events and that storms that produce more frequent rain are even more dangerous.

The research was based on ahindcast attribution, which is similar to a weather forecast but details events in the past rather than the future.

The publication of the study follows the release of a report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that found that nations are not doing enough to rein in global warming.

Michael Wehner is a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and one of the study's co-authors.

The amount of this human caused increase is much larger than what is expected from increases in humidity alone.