https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...-6-this-is-how-world-ends-book-climate-change
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/category-6-hurricane-saffir-simpson-wind-scale
Jeff Masters, one of the most respected meteorologists in America, has begun to wonder publicly about the potential for a category 6 hurricane. He launched a lively debate among his colleagues with a provocative post in July of 2016 on the Weather Underground – a thought-provoking piece that prompted the Weather Channel and others to weigh in with their thoughts and theories as well.
"A 'black swan' hurricane – a storm so extreme and wholly unprecedented that no one could have expected it – hit the Lesser Antilles Islands in October 1780," Masters wrote to open the post. "Deservedly called The Great Hurricane of 1780, no Atlantic hurricane in history has matched its death toll of 22,000. So intense were the winds of the Great Hurricane that it peeled the bark off of trees – something only EF5 tornadoes with winds in excess of 200mph have been known to do."
Masters then made the startling claim that such a "black swan" hurricane was not only possible now but almost certain to occur more than once. He said that such storms should more properly be called "grey swan" hurricanes because the emerging science clearly showed that such "bark-stripping" mega-storms are nearly certain to start appearing.
Masters based his bold prediction on research by two of the best hurricane scientists in the world – Kerry Emanuel of MIT and Ning Lin of Princeton – who published the most detailed hurricane model in history in August 2015. Emanuel and Lin's hurricane model was embedded within six different worldwide climate models routinely run by supercomputers.
Lin and Emanuel said their research showed that not only were grey swan hurricanes now likely to occur, one such devastating hurricane would almost certainly hit the Persian Gulf region – a place where tropical cyclones have never even been seen in history. They identified a "potentially large risk in the Persian Gulf, where tropical cyclones have never been recorded, and larger-than-expected threats in Cairns, Australia, and Tampa, Florida".
Emanuel and Lin showed that the risk of such extreme grey swan hurricanes in Tampa, Cairns, and the Persian Gulf increased by up to a factor of 14 over time as Earth's climate changed.
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/category-6-hurricane-saffir-simpson-wind-scale
The results showed that three vulnerable areas of the world are at risk for a "high-end" Category 5 tropical cyclone by the end of the 21st century due to the Earth's changing climate: Tampa, Florida; Cairns, Australia; and the Persian Gulf.
These potential Category 6 hurricanes may be up to 14 times more likely by 2100, according to the study.
The worst-case potential future hurricane put out by the climate models for the Tampa Bay area is unlike anything ever seen – maximum sustained winds of 233 mph with a minimum central pressure of 830 millibars, traveling parallel along Florida's Gulf Coast, producing a devastating 36-foot storm surge.
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