Recent severe weather patterns raise questions and thoughts about climate change and how life it affects life on Earth. The United States has seen many weather-related issues recently, from hurricanes and fires to increased temperatures. Due to these recent events, specific concerns arise about how badly they could affect the ecosystems.
From a biologist’s perspective, hurricane severity is strongly impacting the environment’s many ecosystems. Assistant biology professor Greg Ruthig stated that coral reefs and terrestrial environments like rain forests will be damaged by hurricanes. Despite the damage, it can be helpful to an ecosystem to a certain extent.
Hurricanes are examples of natural disturbances, and these disturbances need to be in a state of equilibrium to sustain plant and animal species.
“Disturbances can maintain diversity,” Ruthig said. “If you have too few, what happens is the dominant species outcompete other ones and you get winners and losers. But if you get too many or they’re too severe, you wipe the slate clean and that can be a problem.”
While some of these instances are natural phenomena, many people are concerned that the rates of recurrence. Increased severity may be directly related to climate change. The conditions of these hurricanes will continue to worsen as climate change worsens.
“If you look at the overall pattern over the last century, it seems clear that hurricane frequency and magnitude are in general increasing. And that’s consistent with climate change happening worldwide,” said biology professor Jonathan Visick.
Along with the number of storms, there is also a rise in temperatures, specifically localized in tropical areas. “There is a tight relationship between water temperature and severity of storms, and the Caribbean is getting warmer,” Ruthig said.
Water isn’t the only thing warming up in the environment. Temperatures are increasing everywhere, leading to severe heat waves.
“We’re seeing this pattern of increased heat, increased drought, increased fires, over a long period of years that starts to seem more like a significant climate change,” Visick said.
Whether the United States’ recent severe weather is due to climate change or just unusual patterns, it’s an issue scientists will be trying to resolve for years to come.
