Hurricane Milton: Map Shows States Most Vulnerable to Climate Change

Despite being battered by catastrophic Hurricanes Helene and Milton in quick succession, Florida is not ranked as the state most vulnerable to climate change.

The Environmental Defense Fund, Texas A&M University and Darkhorse Analytics have studied each U.S. state’s overall vulnerability to climate change by evaluating communities’ access to health care, housing, transport, and water supplies, as well as the number of natural disasters that affect each state or the number of deaths caused by extreme weather conditions.

In terms of climate-specific vulnerability, which includes factors like extreme weather events, deaths linked to extreme weather and the impact of costs, Florida actually has an average vulnerability ranking, while a hurricane-specific ranking then sets Florida as the most vulnerable state.

Overall, Mississippi was the most vulnerable state in the 100th percentile, while Florida’s vulnerability was in the 72nd percentile, placing it as the 16th most vulnerable state in the U.S.

Louisiana was the second most vulnerable state, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Georgia. The least vulnerable state was Hawaii followed by Vermont, New Hampshire and Alaska.

University College London Professor of Climate Science Chris Brierley noted that the vulnerability ranking relates to “how much damage to the community” an extreme weather event has.

Explaining Florida’s different rankings to Newsweek, Brierley said that Florida was a very wealthy state, and “there’s quite a lot of health care down there compared to Mississippi, which is on the Gulf Coast and is a much poorer, more racially segregated state.”

He added that the ranking could also be in part because, being a wealthy state, many people in Florida might have access to air conditioning, so extreme heat-related deaths are lower than in other states that rank with a vulnerability, like Alabama and Georgia, that are not as affluent.

Research by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency listed the impacts of climate change on the country as a whole, explaining how rising temperatures and the increased frequency of extremely hot days put people at great risk of heat-related illnesses and deaths.

It added that less snowpack and increased glacial melt affect water resources for both ecosystems and human use.

Changes to the timing and character of seasons affect the number of days suitable for growing crops and increase pollen that triggers seasonal allergies.

It warned that these changes “will not be experienced equally, as some communities have faced and will continue to face disproportionate impacts of climate change due to existing vulnerabilities, including socioeconomic disparities, historical patterns of inequity, and systemic environmental injustices.”

Reflecting on whether states’ vulnerability will increase going forward, Brierley told Newsweek, “I would like to be really positive and say that what will happen is we will use this kind of tool to find out where is most vulnerable, and then focus our actions to specifically those regions to reduce vulnerability.”

He added, though, that if places like Florida are repeatedly “hammered by hurricanes,” pointing to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, then their “resilience goes down because they’re still recovering from the last disaster by the time the next one comes.”

Addressing the impact of climate change on hurricanes, the professor noted that a “warmer world holds more moisture,” which has two consequences: the first is that the moisture acts as “fuel” for the hurricanes, and the second is that the hurricanes will bring greater quantities of rain.

However, Brierley added that climate models “don’t all agree” on forecasts of climate change impact, so it is harder to make predictions when how climate change will affect specific areas like the Gulf of Mexico is “less certain.”

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