Mika Brzezinski told her co-hosts Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in Florida that storms are worsening because the temperature in the world’s oceans was rising partly due to human-caused climate change.
Co-host Willie Geist said, “The Miami Herald leads with this image of flooded streets in downtown Fort Myers, and The Tampa Bay Times has this photo of a displaced sailboat near a roadway.”
Brzezinski said, “As we’re covering what some are calling the storm of a lifetime, The Washington Post has a feature on why Florida is more prone to hurricanes, and it’s got a lot to do with the state’s unique geography.”
She continued, “As the paper points out, more than 41% of hurricanes in the United States have made some sort of landfall in Florida. The state juts into warm tropical waters directly in the paths of storms barreling through the Caribbean. Florida also suffers some of the highest financial damage from hurricanes. That’s due in part to the rapid coastal development where roughly 76% of the state’s population lives by the water. According to the post, quote while storm frequency has not trended upward, research shows hurricanes in the Atlantic have become more intense, partly driven by higher sea surface temperatures linked to human-caused climate change.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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