Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever to hit Jamaica, was worsened in every aspect by the climate crisis, according to a new study by the World Weather Attribution consortium. The category 5 hurricane struck Jamaica on October 28 with winds up to 185mph (298km/h), causing widespread devastation.
The research found that winds of Melissa's strength are now five times more frequent due to climate change. Climate change increased the hurricane's maximum wind speeds by 7% and extreme rainfall by 16%. Events like the five days of pounding rainfall in Jamaica are now about 30% more intense and twice as likely in today's climate, which is about 1.3C hotter than pre-industrial levels.
The storm wiped out homes, businesses, crops and livelihoods, with damage estimated at about a third of Jamaica's GDP. It displaced hundreds of thousands of people and caused at least 61 deaths as it continued on to Cuba, with damage as far as the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Global heating has made the atmospheric and marine conditions behind such extreme events six times more likely. Melissa underwent rapid intensification, with wind speeds shooting up from 68mph to 139mph in just one day, a hallmark of a warming climate. The storm crawled over seas nearly 1.5C hotter than the long-term norm.
Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London and one of the study's authors, warned: 'What we see with Hurricane Melissa and other recent monster storms is that they are becoming so intense that they will soon push millions of people beyond the limits of adaptation.' Jayaka Campbell, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, called Melissa 'the canary in the coalmine' and 'the dangerous new reality of our warming world.'
The disaster has highlighted the issue of climate finance, with Jamaica's Prime Minister Andrew Holness stating before the storm that contributions to a fund for at-risk countries were 'grossly inadequate'. Countries are set to convene for annual UN climate talks in Belém, Brazil, to again discuss climate finance.
