Hurricanes are among the world’s most destructive natural hazards. Their ability to cause damage is shaped by their environment; conditions like warm ocean waters, guiding winds, and atmospheric moisture can all dictate storm strength.

A new study led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory finds that coastal conditions have changed since 1979, driving nearshore hurricanes around the world to intensify at a quickening pace. What’s more, new projections suggest this rate will continue climbing should current warming trends continue. The paper is published in the journal Earth’s Future.

Much work has been done to document how hurricanes are changing in our warmer world. Past research has shown these storms may grow wetter, threatening heightened risks of flooding. Other work suggests they may strike more often in some areas and that their intensity may peak closer to the coast, posing additional risk to the roughly 40 percent of the world’s population that lives within 100 kilometers (62.13 miles) of a coastline, according to the United Nations.

Yet, until now, no one has documented whether coastal hurricanes are intensifying faster at a global scale. Looking at past data, the authors of the new work found that the average rate at which these storms intensified over the period from 1979 to 2000 was 0.37 knots every six hours. That pace picked up for the period from 2000 to 2020, where the mean intensification rate was 1.15 knots every six hours.

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