New Research Links Typhoon Gaemi’s Intensity to Human-Driven Climate Change

New Research Links Typhoon Gaemi’s Intensity to Human-Driven Climate Change

(IN BRIEF) Researchers at Imperial College London found that Typhoon Gaemi in July 2024 was 50% more likely due to human-driven climate change, with its maximum wind speeds increased by 7%. The study, powered by Vodafone Foundation’s DreamLab app, used the IRIS Storm Model to analyze the impact of climate change on tropical cyclones. DreamLab harnesses the processing power of idle smartphones to support research. The findings suggest that due to climate change, strong typhoons like Gaemi are becoming more frequent, particularly in regions like Taiwan.

(PRESS RELEASE) BERKSHIRE, 9-Aug-2024 — /EuropaWire/ — Researchers at Imperial College London have determined that Typhoon Gaemi, which struck the Philippines, Taiwan, and China in July 2024, was 50% more likely to have been caused by human-driven climate change. The storm, with wind speeds reaching 227 km/hr (equivalent to a category four hurricane), resulted in at least 75 fatalities and caused significant economic damage.

The research, powered by Vodafone Foundation’s DreamLab project, utilized Imperial College London’s Storm Model (IRIS) to examine the relationship between climate change and the intensity of typhoon winds. The findings revealed that maximum wind speeds of storms like Typhoon Gaemi have increased by about 14 km/hr, or 7%, due to climate change. IRIS allows scientists to quickly assess the impact of climate change on the most destructive tropical cyclones, offering valuable insights for at-risk communities.

While most climate models struggle to accurately simulate the factors driving extreme storm winds, IRIS stands out by using millions of ‘synthetic’ storm tracks to provide a detailed analysis. This innovative model has enabled one of the few attribution studies on the effect of climate change on tropical cyclone winds. A previous study using IRIS found that climate change nearly doubled the likelihood of Hurricane Beryl’s extreme winds when it hit Jamaica earlier in July 2024.

DreamLab, the app that powers IRIS, is a crowdsourcing tool developed by Vodafone Foundation. It accelerates research by harnessing the processing power of idle smartphones while users charge them overnight. With 3.5 million downloads globally, DreamLab functions as a virtual supercomputer, enabling complex calculations without compromising user privacy.

The research indicates that before the influence of human-driven climate change, typhoons of similar strength were expected once every four years. However, due to global warming driven by the burning of fossil fuels, regions like Taiwan now face an increased frequency of strong typhoons.

IRIS is proving to be a crucial tool in advancing climate change and tropical cyclone research. Through the contributions of over 163,000 DreamLab users, more than 82 million calculations were performed to support this groundbreaking research.

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SOURCE: VODAFONE