Category 6? Climate-boosted hurricanes push scientists to rethink classifications
Stronger and more destructive hurricanes fueled by climate change may require a rethinking of how storms are classified, according to a new study that suggests adding a Category 6 for ranking them to better convey damaging wind speeds.
Stronger and more destructive hurricanes fueled by climate change may require a rethinking of how storms are classified, according to a new study that suggests adding a Category 6 for ranking them to better convey damaging wind speeds.
The research, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined whether the existing Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which ranks hurricanes from 1 to 5 based on a storm’s maximum sustained wind speed, will be sufficient enough to communicate the dangers of more intense storms.
“Our motivation is to reconsider how the open-endedness of the Saffir-Simpson Scale can lead to underestimation of risk, and, in particular, how this underestimation becomes increasingly problematic in a warming world,” Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California and one of the study’s authors, said in a statement.
At the low end of the Saffir-Simpson scale, Category 1 describes wind speeds of 74 to 95 mph. At the other extreme, Category 5 is used for storms with wind speeds of 158 mph or greater.
Rating: 5