Climate Change's Impact on Katrina

Climate Change and Its Relationship to Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina was a category five hurricane that was destructive and deadly. It made landfalls in Louisiana and Florida in 2005 August. Katrina was formed was formed from an interaction between tropical wave and previous tropical depression remnants. This storm was linked to climate change in that; Katrina would be less damaging if it occurred in 1900 where its storm surge would be a bit lower by 60 % (Irish et al., 2014). The rise of sea level is linked to global warming which on the other hand is manmade thus increasing the surge of the storms. Additionally, ocean temperature being warmer along Katrina’s way helped amplified the storm by altering the atmospheric water vapor (Trenberth et al., 2007). Another research indicated that manmade activities leading to global warming amplified the intensity of hurricanes activity around Hawaii in 2014 and this clearly indicates the link between Katrina and climate change (Hill, 2015).

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Evaluation

Since this storm was a natural phenomenon, it could not have been prevented through its intensity and damage could have been decreased by controlling climate change and pre-disaster preparedness. Before the storm no much was done. For instance, flooding control system failure was one of the major factors that amplified Katrina damages. This impact could have been decreased by early preparedness via implementing a disaster recovery plan, preparing and exercising disaster drills to increase people’s awareness and devolvement of powers to prevent the federal failures witnessed during Katrina. From this occurrence, people have learned lessons such as; the first responder should be straight from the community and not federal government, rescue efforts must be extended to everyone, there are many vulnerabilities and not necessarily drowning, the issue of communication and power backups etc. (Adams et la., 2011) In the future, more hurricanes are expected due to increasing climate change. This means in future, disaster management strategies should be applied to limit the impact of hurricanes.

References

Adams, T., Anderson, L., Turner, M. and Armstrong, J., 2011. Coping through a disaster: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 8(1).

Hill, M.J., 2015. Hurricane Resilient Design: For Multifamily Residential High-rises in Hawaii (Doctoral dissertation, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI ‘I AT MĀNOA).

Irish, J.L., Sleath, A., Cialone, M.A., Knutson, T.R. and Jensen, R.E., 2014. Simulations of Hurricane Katrina (2005) under sea level and climate conditions for 1900. Climatic Change, 122(4), pp.635-649.

Trenberth, K.E., Davis, C.A. and Fasullo, J., 2007. Water and energy budgets of hurricanes: Case studies of Ivan and Katrina. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 112(D23).