"WASHINGTON — Humans helped make recent devastating U.S. hurricanes wetter but in different ways, two new studies find.
Hurricane Harvey snagged on the skyscrapers of Houston, causing it to slow and dump more rain than it normally would, one study found. The city’s massive amounts of paving had an even bigger impact by reducing drainage. Land development in the metro area, on average, increased the chances of extreme flooding by 21 times, study authors said.
A second study looked at last year’s major Hurricanes Maria and Irma and 2005′s deadly Katrina and used computer simulations to see what would have happened if there had been no human-caused global warming. The study found that climate change significantly increased rainfall from those three storms, but did not boost their wind speed.
Both studies are in Wednesday’s journal Nature ."
Seth Borenstein reports for the Associated Press November 14, 2018.
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