The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 1

The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification

Michael Self

Department of English, Florida State University

ENC 2135

September 15, 2021

The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 2

Introduction

In the past century, we have seen storms after storms barrel coastal cities from Galveston

to New York City. They are not friendly and do not discriminate against race, class, or gender.

These storms introduce a discussion about what is causing “record-breaking” storms to occur as

if they are regular. Many meteorologists and climatologists, including Ryan Maue, Rebecca

Lindsey, and Andrew Hagan (who will all be included in this paper), contribute global warming

to these larger-than-average cyclones, while others believe it is purely just the luck of the draw

as to these storms making landfall as monsters. Figuring out the cause can not only ease the

minds of coastal living citizens, but also allow us to find possibilities to slow or even stop the

increasing frequency of these bomb cyclone storms. Before discussing these topics, one must

look at the discourse community that surrounds the discussion. In the case of this paper, the

discourse community is meteorology professionals all across the world, which will be defined

and explained further along in this paper.

There will be pertinent information and details about what bomb intensification is and

how it affects the people living in the area these cyclones make landfall in. The difference

between normal intensification of a tropical cyclone and bomb intensification is very important

when understanding what makes them so dangerous to civilization, which is why it will also be

discussed in this paper. Climate change in today’s world is already an important topic of

discussion, while also being the leading cause of why bomb intensification is so much more

frequent than it truly should be.

The Leaders of the Discussion

To understand any topic of discussion in today’s society, one must first understand the

group of people having this discussion. In other words, one must understand the people who care
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 3

about the topic, before the discussion will make sense. These people that have these discussions

about the topic of this research paper, are in a discourse community. A discourse community as

defined by John Swales, in “Reflections of the Concept of Discourse Communities”, is “groups

that have goals and purposes, and use communication to achieve their goals”. A discourse

community could be any groups that follows the criteria of: share a common goal, specific ways

of communication between each other, provide review to each other, has one or more genres in

communication, has a certain lexis, and lastly is full of people with knowledge about topics in

their community (Swales 4).

The discourse community of meteorology professionals passes all of the criteria that John

Swales posed. To start, the meteorologists all have the goal to further the understanding of

weather and climate as we know it, possibly going on to teach at a school or in the workforce

where they break down current weather phenomenons. The professionals communicate with

group research proposals and online discussions that they share, while also giving each other

feedback on their research/work. They share a lexis by using specific words that only these

meteorologists would recognize and know the meaning of. The professionals are trained by the

elders in their region, joined with professors with even more knowledge, which fulfills the last

criteria. The point of discussing this discourse community is to better understand who truly cares

about this topic of bomb intensification as it pertains to tropical cyclones in today’s world. The

question of why they should care will be answered throughout the rest of this paper.

Bomb Intensification

So what dictates the difference between a tropical cyclone intensifying like normal and

one that undergoes “bomb intensification”? Well to answer that question, one must first fully

understand the ingredients needed to create a tropical cyclone and for it to intensify in any
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 4

manner. As the National Oceanic Service describes it, the first thing needed for a tropical

cyclone to form is a pre-existing weather disturbance, coming from the saharan winds in Africa.

The next ingredient needed is at least 50 meter deep water with a temperature at or above 26.5

degrees celsius. This is the most critical ingredient as without the latent heat in the ocean, there

would be no water for the cyclone to “drink up”. With a low amount of shear in the atmosphere

and thunderstorm activity, the tropical cyclone is finally able to form and begin intensifying

(“How do Hurricanes Form”, 2021).

Now that the ingredients for a tropical cyclone have been laid out, what is the definition

of “bomb intensification”? Karthik Balaguru, Gregory Foltz, and L. Ruby Leung had their paper

titled “Increasing Magnitude of Hurricane Rapid Intensification in the Central and Eastern

Tropical Atlantic” published by Geophysical Research Letters in 2018, where they speak about

the definition of rapid intensification (also known as bomb intensification) as “an event where a

hurricane increases in intensity by 25 knots or higher in 24 hr”. This is the universal rule across

the discourse community of meteorologists when defining a tropical cyclone as having a rapid

intensification event. So what causes this phenomenon to take place? In Ryan Maue’s FSU PhD

dissertation called “Warm seclusion extratropical cyclones”, he talks about how these tropical

cyclones may experience bomb intensification “as a result of nonlinear dynamical feedbacks

associated with latent heat release”. In more blatant terms, Maue states that when there is more

latent heat exchange between the atmosphere and the warm ocean water (the warmer the better

for the cyclone), bomb intensification has a likely chance of taking place (Maue xxi). An easier

way for an “average joe” to understand what bomb intensification is and what it looks like, is by

showing an example. In mid-October 2018, a storm was brewing in the Southern Gulf of

Mexico, first taking aim at Cuba and South Florida (“Hurricane Michael'', 2019). Mid-october is
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 5

just after the peak of hurricane season in the Southeastern United States, but also when the

storms begin to shift from being Atlantic born to Gulf born (Gulf of Mexico). As any tropical

cyclone does, Michael began as a tropical depression, until the 35 mph wind range was met to be

named a tropical storm. This storm quickly gained strength to become the M-named storm for

the 2018 season, Tropical Storm Michael. After finding wind speeds of 72 mph, Hurricane

Michael was born. This soon-to-be monster hurricane barreled through the Gulf of Mexico, with

the panhandle of Florida in Michael’s line of sight and there was non stopping this massive

storm.

Although this storm went through rapid intensification (bomb intensification) multiple

times during its relatively short life, the most detrimental period of time was right before it made

landfall in the “big bend” part of Florida. At 1800 UTC time on the 10th of October, Michael had

sustained winds of 100 kt (115 mph). Just 24 hours later, Michael was at 135 kt sustained winds

(155 mph) (“Hurricane Michael'', 2019). As discussed earlier in the paper, to be considered RI

(bomb intensification), the cyclone needs to increase by 25 kt in 24 hours or less, so this is a

major bomb intensification period. Just a few hours after the storm hit 135 kt, Michael made

landfall. One of the biggest challenges and dangers of rapid intensification of a tropical cyclone

is that it is rarely predicted to its full extent. As someone who was watching the news like a hawk

(living in Central Florida), I remember noticing that every NHC update included a little higher

wind speed within hours of it making landfall. People do not take just hours to leave an area, so

the people who did not evacuate the days ahead were stuck there no matter what the storm

brought them. So to save the lives of these people living in tropical cyclone prone areas, we must

first begin to look into what is causing this bomb intensification to be seen so often, and how can

we change it?
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 6

Global Warming and Rapid Intensification

Global warming has been one of these most talked about topics in the meteorological

community for more than a decade, for a good reason. Before I move along and discuss why

global warming is important to the topic of this paper, I would like to talk about the subtle

difference between climate change and global warming. When someone talks about climate

change, they are more than likely talking about the anthropogenic (human caused) addition of

carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) to the atmosphere, which would lead to an overall

higher temperature on the surface. When I discuss global warming in this paper, I am talking

about the rising temperature on the surface of the earth (including oceans) regardless of the

cause. It is shown that the earth undergoes a cycle of intense warming and cooling periods every

thousands of years, so this is one of the reasons that the Earth is “warming” at this time (Dennis

Avery 2017). This does not mean humans are not contributing to the exponential warming of the

earth at a speed never seen before, but it is an important thing to include. So what does global

warming have to do with the topic of bomb intensification? Well, bomb intensification happens

only when certain factors are in place, one of the most important is higher than normal ocean

temperatures (“How do Hurricanes Form”, 2021).

In a climate.gov article written by LuAnn Dahlman and Rebecca Lindsey, it is shown that

“more than 90 percent of the warming that happened on Earth between 1971-2010 occurred in

the ocean”. This increase in latent heat energy in the oceans across the world, means a more

favorable “atmosphere” for the bomb intensification of a tropical cyclone. Using a real life

example of this taking place, Hurricane Michael encountered about “20kt of vertical shear”

which would normally rip apart a storm (or at least slow the growth) but due to a large amount of

“upshear humidification” from the warm ocean waters, it was able to rapidly intensify in such a
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 7

short period of time (“High-Resolution Ensemble HFV3 Forecasts of Hurricane Michael (2018):

Rapid Intensification in Shear”, 2020). With the intensely warm ocean water that Michael passed

over, the amount of evaporation and convection the storm encountered, created the monster

Michael became. This is why the main reason that bomb intensification is so much more

common today than in the past, is the warming of the oceans caused by global warming.

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, there has been discourse about the creation of hurricanes, the

rapid intensification of these cyclones, and the true reason behind the increase in frequency of

these rapidly intensifying storms. Topics like these are not only discussed by people in the

discourse community of meteorology professionals, but also emergency management leaders,

political figures, land/home developers, and many more. As anyone can see after reading this

paper, the threat of tropical cyclones will continue to grow into the future. As the water

temperature of the oceans continues to rise with the overall temperature of the planet, we will

continue to see more and more rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones in the Atlantic and Pacific

basins. This creates the need for more discussion about topics like these, informing the “average

Joe” about things that will more than likely affect their life in some sort of way. This will help

people think for themselves, the best they can, when it comes to buying property on the coast in

tropical cyclone prone areas. An important thing to remember about tropical cyclones is that

although there could be more than thirty storms in an Atlanitc season, there may only be one that

hits the continental US causing damage. This goes the same for the other way around too, all it

takes is one “big one” to hit land and cost billions of dollars and kill too many. With the

continuing warming of earth’s surface (including the ocean), governments have tried to

implement laws that will aid in the effort to slow (even some to stop) the increase of carbon
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 8

dioxide in the atmosphere from humans and other semi natural phenomena. The efforts will

hopefully work but even if they do, in the near future the frequency of bomb intensifying storms

will continue to be damaging. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.
The Effects of Climate Change on Bomb Intensification 9

References

Avery, D. (2017, August 08). Understanding Climate Cycles: Here's How To Avoid

Climate Panics. Retrieved from https://www.thegwpf.com/understanding-climate-cycles-

or-how-to-avoid-climate-panics/

Balaguru, K., Foltz, G. R., & Leung, L. R. (2018). Increasing Magnitude of Hurricane

Rapid Intensification in the Central and Eastern Tropical Atlantic. Geophysical Research

Letters, 45(9), 4238-4247. doi:10.1029/2018gl077597

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018GL077597

Beven, J. L., II, Berg, R., & Hagen, A. (2019, May 17). Hurricane Michael. NHC.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL142018_Michael.pdf

Dahlman, L., & Lindsey, R. (2020, August 17). Climate Change: Ocean Heat Content:

NOAA Climate.gov. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-

climate/climate-change-ocean-heat-content

Hazelton, A. T., Zhang, X., Gopalakrishnan, S., Ramstrom, W., Marks, F., & Zhang, J.

A. (2020). High-resolution ensemble HFV3 forecasts of hurricane michael (2018): Rapid

intensification in shear. Monthly Weather Review, 148(5), 2009-2032.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-19-0275.1

Maue, R. N. (2010). Warm seclusion extratropical cyclones [Unpublished doctoral

dissertation]. Florida State University. https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?

url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/warm-seclusion-extratropical-

cyclones/docview/876024275/se-2?accountid=4840

Swales, J. M. (2016, March 01). Reflections on the concept of discourse community.

https://journals.openedition.org/asp/4774
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US Department of Commerce, N. O. (2013, June 28). How do hurricanes form? US

Department of Commerce. https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/how-hurricanes-form.html