Climate Change Intensified Super Typhoon Ragasa, Study Finds

Researchers at ClimateMeter concluded that Super Typhoons similar to Ragasa are around 1C warmer, up to 10% wetter, and slightly windier in present-day climate compared to the past.

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Super Typhoon Ragasa, the strongest storm of the year so far, was intensified by human-made climate change, a new study has concluded.

Super Typhoon Ragasa, which at its peak was comparable to a Category 5 hurricane, battered the northern Philippines and Taiwan on Monday, claiming at least 25 lives. It then moved towards Hong Kong and southern China, bringing torrential rains, destructive winds and widespread flooding.

Carried out by ClimateMeter, the study compared weather patterns in the past (1950–1986) and present-day climate (1987–2023). It concluded that present-day atmospheric conditions resembling Ragasa are now wetter and warmer, favoring the kind of heavy rains, storm surges, and widespread floods that devastated Luzon, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Guangdong.

Specifically, researchers found that cyclones similar to Super Typhoon Ragasa today are locally up to 10 mm/day – about 10% – wetter, around 1C warmer, and roughly 4% windier compared to the past.

While natural climate variability may have played a “modest” role, “the long-term changes in pressure, precipitation, and temperature strongly suggest that the event’s severity is largely consistent with human-driven climate change,” the study said.

“The devastating impacts of Ragasa show that greenhouse gas emissions do far more than warm the world — they make typhoons wetter, stronger, and more violent,” said Davide Faranda from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). 

“Some may try to dismiss this, but the science is clear. If emissions aren’t rapidly cut, countries like the Philippines, Taiwan, and China will face storms more destructive than anything ever seen before,” he added.

Warmer-Than-Usual Waters

While tropical cyclones are a rather common weather phenomenon, there has been a significant increase in their intensity in recent decades, which scientific observations link to human-made climate change. These abnormal trends are attributed largely to rising ocean temperatures.

Super Typhoon Ragasa intensified atop exceptionally warm sea surface temperatures. Image: Climate Central.

As shown in Climate Central’s Ocean Warming index, Ragasa rapidly intensified into a Super Typhoon atop sea surface temperatures that were 0.7-1.1C above average and whose “exceptional” warmth for the period was made 10 to 40 times more likely by human-caused climate change. ⁠

Since the 1970s, the proportion of Category 4 and 5 storms in the western North Pacific as well as the associated rainfall have increased. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the most authoritative scientific body on climate change, tropical Super Typhoons in the region are expected to become more intense under climate change, although their frequency might not change.

Featured image: SSEC/CIMSS, University of Wisconsin–Madison⁠.

More on the topic: What Are Tropical Cyclones? Understanding Hurricanes and Typhoons and Their Link to Climate Change