The flawed way we ranked hurricanes

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🗞️ Driving the news: The Saffir-Simpson scale, which ranks hurricanes by wind speed, is under scrutiny as scientists push for better ways to measure storm severity
• While widely used, the scale fails to account for water-related impacts, such as storm surges and flooding, which cause 90% of hurricane-related deaths
• The devastation from Hurricane Ernesto in Puerto Rico, despite its low wind speed, highlights the scale's limitations

🔭 The context: Developed in the 1970s, the Saffir-Simpson scale measures a hurricane's maximum sustained wind speed, categorizing storms from one to five
• Recent storms like Hurricane Sandy, which had low wind speeds but caused massive flooding, emphasize the need for a more comprehensive system

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: As climate change intensifies storms, there's a growing call to rethink how hurricanes are categorized to improve warnings and save lives
• The debate also touches on whether a category six should be added to the existing scale, given the increasing intensity of modern hurricanes

⏭️ What's next: The scientific community is divided on the best path forward. Some advocate for ditching the Saffir-Simpson scale entirely in favor of a more human-centered, risk-based system
• Others propose enhancements to the current scale, though concerns remain that adding categories could downplay the seriousness of lower-ranked storms

💬 One quote: “We need to move towards a human-centered, rather than a storm-centered framework for hurricane warnings,” says Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus at MIT
• He suggests a system similar to the UK Met Office’s color-coded risk alerts, which could better communicate the dangers of hurricanes to the public

📈 One stat: 90% of hurricane-related deaths are caused by water, not wind, highlighting the limitations of the current Saffir-Simpson scale in assessing the true danger of storms

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