• Car@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Wonder how the next 100 years of hurricanes look like. If the Eastern Coast of the US is generally heating up and becoming drier, will these storms inject much-needed rainfall and become something of a boon? Will hurricanes go from just devastation to a necessary seasonal phenomenon for agriculture and general plant life?

    • AliasAKA@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No is the short answer. Without the typical hydrodynamics for these regions, these storms will just create a tremendous amount of damage and flooding. There is an interesting phenomena that dry land is often not as absorptive as otherwise damp land due to hydrophobic properties from dried out surface level organic matter. So water ends up running off this dry land to drainage points faster, which increases flooding.

      So it’s really just a double whammy. Too dry to have good vegetation, or even absorptive land, such that when these stronger storms roll through, old growth trees will be more likely to fall, and the water will cause worse flooding.