Hurricane Irma, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Interview by Steve Curwood, Living on Earth, Inside Climate News, October 5th 2024
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with Abrahm Lustgarten, author of “On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America.”
It may be weeks, months or even years before we fully understand the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Helene.
While still over water, Helene first flattened many shoreside communities along the Gulf Coast of Florida before it ripped ashore in North Florida and rampaged through five more states, leaving many in its path without working roads, power, food, and water.
Helene’s huge size and speed are linked to increasingly hotter water in the Gulf of Mexico, and a stark reminder that with global heating, weather forecasts based on history are becoming poorer guides to present dangers. Hurricanes have usually weakened when they make landfall, but to the surprise of many, Helene’s impact was just as devastating in the inland mountains of western North Carolina as on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
