Page 14 - aruba-today-20241003

A14 SCIENCE
Thursday 3 OcTOber 2024
Hurricanes like Helene are deadly when they strike and keep

killing for years to come

By SETH BORENSTEIN bumps. Just how storms
AP Science Writer contribute to people’s
Hurricanes in the United deaths after the immediate
States end up hundreds impact is something that
of times deadlier than the needs further study, Hsiang
government calculates, said. But he theorized it in-
contributing to more Amer- cludes the health effects of
ican deaths than car ac- stress, changes in the envi-
cidents or all the nation’s ronment including toxins,
wars, a new study said. people not being able to
The average storm hitting afford health care and oth-
the U.S. contributes to the er necessities because of
early deaths of 7,000 to storm costs, infrastructure
11,000 people over a 15- damage and government
year period, which dwarfs changes in spending.
the average of 24 immedi- “When someone dies a few
ate and direct deaths that years after a hurricane hit
the government counts in them, the cause will be re-
a hurricane’s aftermath, corded as a heart attack,
the study in Wednesday’s stroke or respiratory failure,”
journal Nature concluded. said Texas A&M University
Study authors said even climate scientist Andrew
with Hurricane Helene’s Dessler, who wasn’t part
growing triple digit direct Debris is visible in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Sept. 30, 2024, in Asheville, N.C. of the study but has done
death count, many more Associated Press similar studies on heat and
people will die partly be- cold deaths.
cause of that storm in fu- “After each storm there is a more long-term public over, Hsiang said. “The doctor can’t possibly
ture years. sort of this surge of addi- health and economics- Similar analyses are done know that a hurricane con-
“Watching what’s hap- tional mortality in a state oriented analysis of what’s for heat waves and other tributed/triggered the ill-
pened here makes you that’s been impacted that called excess mortality. health threats like pollu- ness. You can only see it in a
think that this is going to be has not been previously They looked at states’ tion and disease, he said. statistical analysis like this.”
a decade of hardship on documented or associ- death rates after 501 differ- They compare to pre-storm Initially Hsiang and Young
tap, not just what’s hap- ated with hurricanes in any ent storms hitting the United times and adjust for other figured the storm death
pening over the next cou- way,” Hsiang said. States between 1930 and factors that could be caus- bump would go away in
ple of weeks,” said Stanford Hsiang and University of 2015. And what they found ing changes in death rates, a matter of months, but
University climate econo- California Berkeley re- is that after each storm he said. Complicating ev- they were surprised when
mist Solomon Hsiang, a searcher Rachel Young there’s a “bump” in death erything is that the same they examined hundreds
study co-author and a for- looked at hurricane deaths rates. places keep getting hit by of bumps and found they
mer White House science in a different way than It’s a statistical signature multiple storms so there are stretch out, slowly, over 15
and technology official. previous studies, opting for that they see over and death bumps upon death years, Hsiang said. q

Swiss glaciers are receding again after 2 punishing years and despite

a good start to 2024

GENEVA (AP) — The vol- two-year run that depleted emy of Sciences reported the academy said in a vretta in the east, recorded
ume of Switzerland’s gla- the ice by more than 10%, that high temperatures in statement summarizing the melt rates of a meter or
ciers shrank again this sum- scientific experts reported July and August, combined findings. more, the network said in
mer, compounding the Tuesday. with the heat-absorbing “The retreat of the glacier a report for the Swiss Acad-
negative impact of climate The cryosphere observation impact of reddish-yellow tongues and their disinte- emy of Sciences.
change after a devastating team at the Swiss Acad- dust blown northward from gration continue unabat- GLAMOS cited three fac-
the Sahara Desert onto ed as a result of climate tors: “very high” average
Swiss glaciers, led to a loss change,” it said, adding air temperatures in July
of 2.5% of their volume this that the 2.5% loss of volume and August; good weather
year. was higher than the aver- in those months in which
The shrinkage came de- age levels over the last de- there was no fresh snow;
spite “extremely favorable” cade. and southwesterly winds in
conditions through June, Experts at the Glacier Moni- the winter and spring that
the academy said, thanks toring in Switzerland net- dumped the Saharan dust
to 30% more snowfall in work, known as GLAMOS, onto the Alps, causing a
the preceding winter com- said that more than half of warming effect on the ice.
pared to average levels, the glaciers it monitored Switzerland is home to the
meaning that the glaciers completely lost their snow most glaciers of any coun-
had an extra layer of pro- coverage throughout the try in Europe, and saw 4%
tective covering of snow summer. of its total glacier volume
before temperatures rose. Several topmost measure- disappear last year. That

Chunks of ice float in a lake in front of Rhone Glacier near Goms, “August saw the greatest ment points on glaciers, was the second-biggest
Switzerland, June 15, 2023. loss of ice recorded since such as Plaine Morte and decline in a single year on
Associated Press measurements began,” Gries in the south and Sil- top of a 6% drop in 2022.q