What is the correlation between climate change and tornadoes in Indiana?
Quoting Nadia Suben at the IDS: "Is climate change affecting tornado behavior?
Extreme weather events are becoming more disruptive as global temperatures rise. Hurricanes have becomemore severe, threatening life and property. Over the past decades,heat waveshave become longer, more frequent and more intense. Disastrous flood risk has also grown.
Could we also expect shifts in tornado behavior in the face of climate change?
The answer: maybe.
This tornado season has been eventful, but that will wax and wane over certain years depending on patterns like El Niño,” said Ethan Choo, co-president of IU’s Student American Meteorological Society chapter. “Climate change takes a longer time to rear its head in the data, because we need data that’s old enough to pick up the signal of how things are changing.
Cody Kirkpatrick, senior lecturer in IU’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, said climate change could also impact the geographic range where tornadoes occur.
It takes a long time to recognize this change, but researchers have noticed over the last couple of decades that our long-held idea of Tornado Alley, where most of the tornadoes in the U.S. develop, is shifting eastward,” Kirkpatrick said."
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