Hurricane Ida, which devastated Louisiana on August 29th, 2021, evolved from category 1 status in the Gulf of Mexico to category 4 at landfall. The wind speed was about 85 miles per hour on Saturday, but it rapidly intensified to 150 mph the next day. Because of this phenomenon, National Hurricane Center described Ida as a rapidly intensifying storm. The title of rapidly intensifying storm can be given when the speed of the sustained winds increases by at least 35 mph within a 24 hour period.
Now that you have the foundation of understanding what rapidly intensifying storm is, let’s explore some factors that cause a storm to intensify rapidly. First of all, the storm needs a sufficient amount of energy from a deep layer of extra warm water. If the water layer is warm but shallow, it cannot cause the storm to rapidly intensify as it doesn’t contain enough amount of energy. Secondly, the storm needs water vapor. Warmer air can hold more water vapor, and this increases the likelihood of causing storm intensification. When the water vapor condenses into clouds, it releases a substantial amount of heat, which increases the upward motions in the atmosphere that leads to the big thunderstorms in a tropical storm. The third factor is wind shear. The direction of the wind needs to match the ones of the storm to develop in rapid intensification. Wind shear tends to tear the updrafts of hot air caused by the condensation of water vapor; when those become tilted, the large-scale tropical storm cannot form.
Other than these factors, meteorologists have said that an eddy in the Gulf of Mexico played a role in the rapid intensification of Ida. Eddy is a current of water or air contrary to the main current. In the Gulf of Mexico, where Hurricane Katrina and Ida underwent a rapid intensification, there was a body of very warm and deep water that’s associated with Loop Current that comes from the Caribbean. Sometimes this Loop Current forms a northward twist in the Gulf of Mexico, creating an eddy of extra warm water. When a tropical storm comes along and passes over the eddy while it is present, the storm will likely go through rapid intensification due to the energy provided by the pool of warm, deep water.
Recently, there has been an increasing number of rapidly intensifying storms, and the primary causation for this phenomenon is anthropogenic climate change. The ocean is absorbing about 90 percent of the heat that is being trapped by the excess amount of greenhouse gases that humans release into the atmosphere. Human-induced climate change is essentially providing the main ingredients needs for rapid intensification. These natural disasters can be prevented and reduced by humans, as the underlying causes of these storms are induced by us.
We can make a lot of choices in our own lives for the environment. To reduce our carbon footprint, local communities can provide incentives to support buying a car that’s more efficient, and we can buy appliances that are more efficient for homes. It will be a collective effort to find a solution to alleviate the effects of natural disasters and climate change which deprive people of their homes and necessities and cause physical and mental damages.
Works Cited:
Lloyd, Robin. “How Hurricane Ida Got so Big so Fast.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 31 Aug. 2021, www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-hurricane-ida-got-so-big-so-fast/.
Chow, Denise. “Hurricane IDA, Climate Change And 'Rapid Intensification'.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal News Group, 31 Aug. 2021, www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/hurricane-ida-climate-change-rapid-intensification-rcna1821.