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Just 1% of England’s land will be needed for renewables to help meet the UK’s climate goals by 2050, according to a first-of-its-kind framework.

There is enough land in England to meet climate and nature goals, while also producing more food and building new homes, according to the UK government’s new “land-use framework”.

Speaking at the framework’s launch on Wednesday, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said she hoped it would put an end to the idea that England faces “false choices” over “solar panels versus farmland”, or “growth versus environment”.

The policy was first planned by the Conservative government in 2022, but has been delayed many times.

It has been broadly welcomed by environmental groups, with Tony Juniper, the chair of Natural England, calling it a “vital step forward” towards “more joined-up approaches” to land use.

Below, Carbon Brief outlines the main points of the framework relating to climate change, nature restoration, food production, renewable energy and housing.

What is the land-use framework?

The government’s land-use framework for England aims to set out a “coherent national vision” for using land.

The 56-page report is the first of its kind in England.

It focuses solely on England, but notes that the government will “work closely” with the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to share best practice and “collaborate on cross-border issues”.

It is a “blueprint” to inform better decisions on optimising land use to produce food, host renewable energy, restore nature and build more homes, says environment secretary Emma Reynolds in the foreword of the framework.

The plan hopes to end the “fragmented approach” to tackling these issues, which has led to a “confused picture and missed opportunities for land to deliver multiple benefits”, Reynolds says in the foreword. She adds:

“We can plant trees to reduce flood risk to homes and farmland, locate energy infrastructure alongside nature-rich food production and ensure nature recovery is at the heart of resilient growth and development.”

The report says it will play a “critical role” in helping to deliver national and global commitments, such as carbon budgets and national biodiversity and climate plans.

The framework commits to creating a long-term assessment of climate change impacts on land use at 2C and 4C of global warming.

It also commits to setting up a “land-use unit” in the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs to produce a map of “national spatial priorities” in England for, among other things, food production, nature and housing.

The government says it will update the framework every five years, outlining progress and next steps on implementation.

Currently, about 70% of land in the UK is used for agriculture – primarily livestock.

The chart below highlights how land is currently allocated in the UK (left) and how much overseas land is used to produce food for the UK (right).

UK land area divided up by purpose (left). About 70% is devoted to agriculture, mainly livestock and livestock feed and pasture. The right-hand side of the chart, using the same scale, shows how much land is used overseas to produce food for the UK. Credit: National Food Strategy (2021)
UK land area divided up by purpose (left). About 70% is devoted to agriculture, mainly livestock and livestock feed and pasture. The right-hand side of the chart, using the same scale, shows how much land is used overseas to produce food for the UK. Credit: National Food Strategy (2021)

The government’s land-use framework for England has been long-awaited and much-delayed.

The recommendation for the report first came in the 2021 National Food Strategy, an independent report led by businessman Henry Dimbleby.

It recommended creating a rural land-use framework to give “detailed assessments” of the best ways to use land in England.

The former Conservative government committed to produce such a report in a June 2022 food strategy.

This strategy said that a land-use framework for England would be released in 2023 “to ensure we meet our net-zero and biodiversity targets”, among other aims.

The publication was, however, delayed many times.

The Labour government launched a consultation on the framework in January 2025 and the final report was eventually released on 18 March 2026.

The framework is a “long-awaited opportunity for real change”, says Roger Mortlock, chief executive of the environmental charity Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), in a statement.

Mortlock welcomes its “ambition”, but says that the way in which land tradeoffs are considered locally and nationally “will be key to its success”. 

A report released by CPRE earlier this week, however, said that the framework is “unlikely to be the silver bullet many are hoping for”.

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What does the plan say about how land in England should be used?

The framework uses high-resolution modelling – what it calls the “most sophisticated analysis” of its kind – to examine how England can use land to meet climate, nature, food and housing needs.

One key finding is that England has enough land to meet all of its objectives, if land is used efficiently.

This means that England has “enough land to deliver our objectives for nature restoration and development without reducing domestic food production or compromising on these objectives”, according to the framework.

It adds that efficient land use means “playing to the strengths” of England’s varied landscape. This involves, for example, prioritising the restoration of peatlands in north-west England and temperate rainforests in the south-west.

The chart below shows the percentage of land in England currently used for different purposes, as well as how this distribution will need to change by 2030 and 2050, if the UK is to meet its goals, according to the framework.

Chart showing that just 1% of England's land will be needed for renewables by 2050
The percentage of land in England currently used for different purposes, as well as how this distribution will need to change by 2030 and 2050, if the UK is to meet its goals for climate, nature, housing and food production. Credit: The Land Use Framework for England (2026)

According to the framework, just 1% of England’s land will need to be taken up by renewables, such as solar and onshore wind, by 2050.

However, the framework does note that there is “inherent uncertainty” in projecting energy use by 2050 and says that the amount of land required for renewables may be nearer to “more than 2%”, depending on how quickly solar and wind is deployed in the future.

A further 6% of England’s land should be used for achieving climate and nature goals, according to the framework.

(A Defra official tells Carbon Brief that the framework’s projections for renewable energy and tree-planting were not as ambitious as those in the Climate Change Committee’s central pathway to net-zero, but are in line with the government’s carbon budget delivery plan for 2035.)

Speaking at the launch of the framework, environment secretary Emma Reynolds said that the framework shows that there are no “false choices” between “solar panels versus farmland” or “growth versus environment”, adding:

“The problem has never been scarcity of land. It has been a shortage of clarity.”

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What does the framework mean for different sectors?

The framework sets out a “vision” for land use in several areas, such as housing, energy, food and nature by 2030 and 2050.

It also details what the government is currently doing to achieve these aims and makes pledges for more action down the line.

Below, Carbon Brief has detailed the key points around renewable energy, tree-planting and nature restoration, food production and housing.

Renewable energy

The report notes that the need to produce extra electricity to meet growing demand from, among other things, electric vehicles, heat pumps and data centres is “changing the way land is used across England”.

The UK plans to produce at least 95% of electricity from low-carbon sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear, by 2030.

Despite this, the report says that solar and wind will continue to make up a “small proportion of land use”. It says that, by 2030, much of this land will be “managed sustainably” for dual purposes, such as placing solar panels on the same land as growing crops.

Currently, around 21,000 hectares of land in the UK is covered by solar panels – which, as Carbon Brief has previously noted, is much less than the land used for golf courses.

Proportions of total UK land (blue) taken up by golf courses (red), airports (orange), ground-mounted solar panels in 2022 (dark yellow) and estimated additional land taken up by ground-mounted solar panels in the future under government plans (light yellow).
Proportions of total UK land (blue) taken up by golf courses (red), airports (orange), ground-mounted solar panels in 2022 (dark yellow) and estimated additional land taken up by ground-mounted solar panels in the future under government plans (light yellow). The right-hand square represents 1% of the left-hand square. Source: Carbon Brief analysis using Corine Land Cover data and estimates from Solar Energy UK, using Solar Media data. Chart by Tom Prater for Carbon Brief.

By 2035, an additional 129,000 hectares of land is estimated to be used for solar and wind energy in England, with some of this land also used to produce food at the same time.

If achieved, this will account for 1% of land in England and 2% of the UK’s agricultural area.

This estimate is based on the assumption that all extra solar will be installed on the ground, which the report says is a “highly conservative and unlikely scenario” given that many panels are anticipated to be placed on rooftops.

This makes the 2035 figure an “upper-bound” estimate, says the report.

By 2050, around 155,000 hectares – roughly equal to the size of Greater London – will be used for renewables, the report estimates, adding that this is based on trends from historical data and not future scenarios.

The report adds that it is possible that more land than this will be needed to meet energy goals past 2035, however, citing the “inherent uncertainty” in figuring out what the mix of electricity sources will look like by 2050.

By 2030, coordinated planning of electricity networks will encourage rural investment, “such as through new data centres”, the report claims.

By 2050, the report says that better land-use planning will lead to a “fairer and more efficient distribution of solar and wind infrastructure across England”.

There will also be better electricity connections to renewables, much of which will be delivered alongside “productive agriculture”, such as by installing solar panels above crops – known as agrivoltaic farming.

The report says that any land-use change decisions should be made based on a number of factors, drawing from “local knowledge, values, data and priorities”.

It notes that development of wind and solar infrastructure in rural areas should give local communities the “opportunity to benefit from local clean energy”.

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Tree-planting and nature restoration

According to the framework, 6% of England’s land will need to be used for achieving climate and nature goals by 2050.

This kind of land use includes restoring England’s carbon-dense peatlands, planting new woodlands and restoring heathland habitats.

As part of the analysis, the framework takes a detailed look at what parts of England would be best suited for nature restoration. It says:

“Habitat creation and restoration should be directed to the places where it can have the greatest ecological impact, help to reconnect fragmented landscapes, support priority species and deliver the greatest contribution to nature recovery.”

The chart below, taken from the framework, shows where in England has the greatest potential for nature restoration in dark green.

Map of England showing land-use change in %
Areas in England coloured by their potential for nature restoration, from low potential (white) to high potential (dark green). Credit: The Land Use Framework for England (2026)

The analysis finds that north-west England has high potential for nature restoration, largely because it is home to the vast majority of the country’s carbon-rich, but degraded, peatlands.

Other areas identified include the south-west, which could be suitable for “grassland restoration and broadleaf woodland creation” and the south-east, where new grasslands could be planted, according to the framework.

The framework adds that the UK government remains committed to protecting 30% of land for nature by 2030, an international goal set under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

However, it notes that, at present, just 7% of England’s land is protected for nature – with just four years to go until the deadline.

Speaking at the launch of the framework, nature minister Mary Creagh acknowledged that meeting the target remains a large challenge.

She added that her department was currently on a “data sprint” to try to account for all kinds of land that may not currently be classified as being protected for nature, despite serving this purpose.

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Food production

The new framework extensively discusses how to balance food production with other uses for land, such as producing renewable energy and building homes.

The government says it is generally not suggesting land-use change on the country’s “best agricultural land”.

The framework focuses instead on using farmland to fulfil dual purposes, “rather than taking land out of production entirely”.

The goals outlined in the framework include increasing domestic food production in England, which the report says is “feasible according to our projections”.

Currently, the UK produces around 60% of its own food, importing the rest from abroad.

By 2030, the “vision” outlined in the framework says that farmers and other land managers will have better long-term clarity and more information on improved ways to use their land.

By 2050, meanwhile, farmlands will be managed to prioritise “sustainable food production and environmental benefits”, it says.

At this stage, the framework estimates that 480,000 hectares of farmland could be used primarily for food production, while also bringing environmental and climate benefits such as planting trees or restoring grassland habitats.

Agricultural land will be used to balance food production and other outcomes. A footnote in the report says that this will broadly lead to a “mosaic of different landscapes” – semi-natural land, low-intensity farmland and higher-intensity farmland.

It also says that, by 2050, farmland will be more resilient to climate change impacts through actions such as planting trees for flood and drought resilience.

All projected scenarios in the analysis behind the framework focus on producing food “more sustainably from less land”, the report notes.

Solar panels on a sugar beet field in Norfolk, England in 2013. Credit: Ernie Janes
Solar panels on a sugar beet field in Norfolk, England in 2013. Credit: Ernie Janes / Alamy Stock Photo

The agricultural land-use change recommendations in the framework differ across the country. If focusing on improvements to water quality and biodiversity, for example, it recommends looking at areas with intensive agricultural production in the east of England.

This is due to these areas using high quantities of fertilisers, which can wash off fields and run into rivers and other waterways. This lowers water quality and harms plants and animals.

The government commits to developing sectoral growth plans, starting with horticulture and poultry, to provide a framework to boost production and “maintain food security”.

The government also promises to support making “under-used land” available for communities to grow food and recover nature, “where appropriate”. This refers to inactive land that is not suitable for other developments.

The report is a “step in the right direction”, says Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers’ Union. He adds that it is “positive” to have “explicit recognition” of using land for multiple purposes and a government commitment to maintain food production.

Bradshaw notes that “challenges remain about delivering against the ambitious objectives as the first 2030 milestone approaches”.

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Housing

Reynolds says that this framework can help to “speed up house-building and infrastructure delivery”.

The report says that, by 2030, improved planning will enable areas to facilitate housing and development “whilst protecting and enhancing the environment”.

It adds that, where appropriate, developments will be higher-density to “make the best use of land within our towns and cities”.

By 2030, biodiversity net gain – a planning requirement to improve habitats while building developments – and nature-based solutions will also be used to ensure development “leaves the natural environment in a measurably better state than it was in beforehand”, the report says.

It adds that timber production will be expanded to provide “low-carbon building materials”.

By 2050, meanwhile, the framework says planners will be able to more easily assess how suitable areas are for development “using a streamlined digital planning service and decision support tools”.

These tools – built on a range of data sources – are intended to reduce the number of homes built in areas at risk of flooding, the report says.

One in four homes in England are projected to be at risk of flooding by 2050, under a high-emissions scenario, the report outlines.

The report notes that the government is proposing a “default yes” to some planning applications for developments near well-connected transport stations.

High-demand areas “need to be powered locally and sustainably”, it notes, and using technologies such as rooftop solar to “make use of existing built land for electricity generation” can reduce land pressures elsewhere.

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What Is the Economic Impact of Data Centers? It’s a Secret.

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N.C. Gov. Josh Stein wants state lawmakers to rethink tax breaks for data centers. The industry’s opacity makes it difficult to evaluate costs and benefits.

Tax breaks for data centers in North Carolina keep as much as $57 million each year into from state and local government coffers, state figures show, an amount that could balloon to billions of dollars if all the proposed projects are built.

What Is the Economic Impact of Data Centers? It’s a Secret.

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GEF raises $3.9bn ahead of funding deadline, $1bn below previous budget

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The Global Environment Facility (GEF), a multilateral fund that provides climate and nature finance to developing countries, has raised $3.9 billion from donor governments in its last pledging session ahead of a key fundraising deadline at the end of May.

The amount, which is meant to cover the fund’s activities for the next four years (July 2026-June 2030), falls significantly short of the previous four-year cycle for which the GEF managed to raise $5.3bn from governments. Since then, military and other political priorities have squeezed rich nations’ budgets for climate and development aid.

The facility said in a statement that it expects more pledges ahead of the final replenishment package, which is set for approval at the next GEF Council meeting from May 31 to June 3.

Claude Gascon, interim CEO of the GEF, said that “donor countries have risen to the challenge and made bold commitments towards a more positive future for the planet”. He added that the pledges send a message that “the world is not giving up on nature even in a time of competing priorities”.

    Donors under pressure

    But Brian O’Donnell, director of the environmental non-profit Campaign for Nature, said the announcement shows “an alarming trend” of donor governments cutting public finance for climate and nature.

    “Wealthy nations pledged to increase international nature finance, and yet we are seeing cuts and lower contributions. Investing in nature prevents extinctions and supports livelihoods, security, health, food, clean water and climate,” he said. “Failing to safeguard nature now will result in much larger costs later.”

    At COP29 in Baku, developed countries pledged to mobilise $300bn a year in public climate finance by 2035, while at UN biodiversity talks they have also pledged to raise $30bn per year by 2030. Yet several wealthy governments have announced cuts to green finance to increase defense spending, among them most recently the UK.

    As for the US, despite Trump’s cuts to international climate finance, Congress approved a $150 million increase in its contribution to the GEF after what was described as the organisation’s “refocus on non-climate priorities like biodiversity, plastics and ocean ecosystems, per US Treasury guidance”.

    The facility will only reveal how much each country has pledged when its assembly of 186 member countries meets in early June. The last period’s largest donors were Germany ($575 million), Japan ($451 million), and the US ($425 million).

    The GEF has also gone through a change in leadership halfway through its fundraising cycle. Last December, the GEF Council asked former CEO Carlos Manuel Rodriguez to step down effective immediately and appointed Gascon as interim CEO.

    Santa Marta conference: fossil fuel transition in an unstable world

    New guidelines

    As part of the upcoming funding cycle, the GEF has approved a set of guidelines for spending the $3.9bn raised so far, which include allocating 35% of resources for least developed countries and small island states, as well as 20% of the money going to Indigenous people and communities.

    Its programs will help countries shift five key systems – nature, food, urban, energy and health – from models that drive degradation to alternatives that protect the planet and support human well-being by integrating the value of nature into production and consumption systems.

    The new priorities also include a target to allocate 25% of the GEF’s budget for mobilising private funds through blended finance. This aligns with efforts by wealthy countries to increase contributions from the private sector to international climate finance.

    Niels Annen, Germany’s State Secretary for Economic Cooperation and Development, said in a statement that the country’s priorities are “very well reflected” in the GEF’s new spending guidelines, including on “innovative finance for nature and people, better cooperation with the private sector, and stable resources for the most vulnerable countries”.

    Aliou Mustafa, of the GEF Indigenous Peoples Advisory Group (IPAG), also welcomed the announcement, adding that “the GEF is strengthening trust and meaningful partnerships with Indigenous Peoples and local communities” by placing them at the “centre of decision-making”.

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    Marine heatwaves ‘nearly double’ the economic damage caused by tropical cyclones

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    Tropical cyclones that rapidly intensify when passing over marine heatwaves can become “supercharged”, increasing the likelihood of high economic losses, a new study finds.

    Such storms also have higher rates of rainfall and higher maximum windspeeds, according to the research.

    The study, published in Science Advances, looks at the economic damages caused by nearly 800 tropical cyclones that occurred around the world between 1981 and 2023.

    It finds that rapidly intensifying tropical cyclones that pass near abnormally warm parts of the ocean produce nearly double – 93% – the economic damages as storms that do not, even when levels of coastal development are taken into account.

    One researcher, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the new analysis is a “step forward in understanding how we can better refine our predictions of what might happen in the future” in an increasingly warm world.

    As marine heatwaves are projected to become more frequent under future climate change, the authors say that the interactions between storms and these heatwaves “should be given greater consideration in future strategies for climate adaptation and climate preparedness”.

    ‘Rapid intensification’

    Tropical cyclones are rapidly rotating storm systems that form over warm ocean waters, characterised by low pressure at their cores and sustained winds that can reach more than 120 kilometres per hour.

    The term “tropical cyclones” encompasses hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, which are named as such depending on which ocean basin they occur in.

    When they make landfall, these storms can cause major damage. They accounted for six of the top 10 disasters between 1900 and 2024 in terms of economic loss, according to the insurance company Aon’s 2025 climate catastrophe insight report.

    These economic losses are largely caused by high wind speeds, large amounts of rainfall and damaging storm surges.

    Storms can become particularly dangerous through a process called “rapid intensification”.

    Rapid intensification is when a storm strengthens considerably in a short period of time. It is defined as an increase in sustained wind speed of at least 30 knots (around 55 kilometres per hour) in a 24-hour period.

    There are several factors that can lead to rapid intensification, including warm ocean temperatures, high humidity and low vertical “wind shear” – meaning that the wind speeds higher up in the atmosphere are very similar to the wind speeds near the surface.

    Rapid intensification has become more common since the 1980s and is projected to become even more frequent in the future with continued warming. (Although there is uncertainty as to how climate change will impact the frequency of tropical cyclones, the increase in strength and intensification is more clear.)

    Marine heatwaves are another type of extreme event that are becoming more frequent due to recent warming. Like their atmospheric counterparts, marine heatwaves are periods of abnormally high ocean temperatures.

    Previous research has shown that these marine heatwaves can contribute to a cyclone undergoing rapid intensification. This is because the warm ocean water acts as a “fuel” for a storm, says Dr Hamed Moftakhari, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Alabama who was one of the authors of the new study. He explains:

    “The entire strength of the tropical cyclone [depends on] how hot the [ocean] surface is. Marine heatwave means we have an abundance of hot water that is like a gas [petrol] station. As you move over that, it’s going to supercharge you.”

    However, the authors say, there is no global assessment of how rapid intensification and marine heatwaves interact – or how they contribute to economic damages.

    Using the International Best Track Archive for Climate Stewardship (IBTrACS) – a database of tropical cyclone paths and intensities – the researchers identify 1,600 storms that made landfall during the 1981-2023 period, out of a total of 3,464 events.

    Of these 1,600 storms, they were able to match 789 individual, land-falling cyclones with economic loss data from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) and other official sources.

    Then, using the IBTrACS storm data and ocean-temperature data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the researchers classify each cyclone by whether or not it underwent rapid intensification and if it passed near a recent marine heatwave event before making landfall.

    The researchers find that there is a “modest” rise in the number of marine heatwave-influenced tropical cyclones globally since 1981, but with significant regional variations. In particular, they say, there are “clear” upward trends in the north Atlantic Ocean, the north Indian Ocean and the northern hemisphere basin of the eastern Pacific Ocean.

    ‘Storm characteristics’

    The researchers find substantial differences in the characteristics of tropical cyclones that experience rapid intensification and those that do not, as well as between rapidly intensifying storms that occur with marine heatwaves and those that occur without them.

    For example, tropical cyclones that do not experience rapid intensification have, on average, maximum wind speeds of around 40 knots (74km/hr), whereas storms that rapidly intensify have an average maximum wind speed of nearly 80 knots (148km/hr).

    Of the rapidly intensifying storms, those that are influenced by marine heatwaves maintain higher wind speeds during the days leading up to landfall.

    Although the wind speeds are very similar between the two groups once the storms make landfall, the pre-landfall difference still has an impact on a storm’s destructiveness, says Dr Soheil Radfar, a hurricane-hazard modeller at Princeton University. Radfar, who is the lead author of the new study, tells Carbon Brief:

    “Hurricane damage starts days before the landfall…Four or five days before a hurricane making landfall, we expect to have high wind speeds and, because of that high wind speed, we expect to have storm surges that impact coastal communities.”

    They also find that rapidly intensifying storms have higher peak rainfall than non-rapidly intensifying storms, with marine heatwave-influenced, rapidly intensifying storms exhibiting the highest average rainfall at landfall.

    The charts below show the mean sustained wind speed in knots (top) and the mean rainfall in millimetres per hour (bottom) for the tropical cyclones analysed in the study in the five days leading up to and two days following a storm making landfall.

    The four lines show storms that: rapidly intensified with the influence of marine heatwaves (red); those that rapidly intensified without marine heatwaves (purple); those that experienced marine heatwaves, but did not rapidly intensify (orange); and those that neither rapidly intensified nor experienced a marine heatwave (blue).

    Average maximum sustained wind speed (top) and rate of rainfall (bottom) for tropical cyclones in the period leading up to and following landfall. Storms are categorised as: rapidly intensifying with marine heatwaves (red); rapidly intensifying without marine heatwaves (purple); not rapidly intensifying with marine heatwaves (orange); and not rapidly intensifying, without marine heatwaves (blue). Source: Radfar et al. (2026)
    Average maximum sustained wind speed (top) and rate of rainfall (bottom) for tropical cyclones in the period leading up to and following landfall. Storms are categorised as: rapidly intensifying with marine heatwaves (red); rapidly intensifying without marine heatwaves (purple); not rapidly intensifying with marine heatwaves (orange); and not rapidly intensifying, without marine heatwaves (blue). Source: Radfar et al. (2026)

    Dr Daneeja Mawren, an ocean and climate consultant at the Mauritius-based Mascarene Environmental Consulting who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that the new study “helps clarify how marine heatwaves amplify storm characteristics”, such as stronger winds and heavier rainfall. She notes that this “has not been done on a global scale before”.

    However, Mawren adds that other factors not considered in the analysis can “make a huge difference” in the rapid intensification of tropical cyclones, including subsurface marine heatwaves and eddies – circular, spinning ocean currents that can trap warm water.

    Dr Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell University who was also not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that, while the intensification found by the study “makes physical sense”, it is inherently limited by the relatively small number of storms that occur. He adds:

    “There’s not that many storms, to tease out the physical mechanisms and observational data. So being able to reproduce this kind of work in a physical model would be really important.”

    Economic costs

    Storm intensity is not the only factor that determines how destructive a given cyclone can be – the economic damages also depend strongly on the population density and the amount of infrastructure development where a storm hits. The study explains:

    “A high storm surge in a sparsely populated area may cause less economic damage than a smaller surge in a densely populated, economically important region.”

    To account for the differences in development, the researchers use a type of data called “built-up volume”, from the Global Human Settlement Layer. Built-up volume is a quantity derived from satellite data and other high-resolution imagery that combines measurements of building area and average building height in a given area. This can be used as a proxy for the level of development, the authors explain.

    By comparing different cyclones that impacted areas with similar built-up volumes, the researchers can analyse how rapid intensification and marine heatwaves contribute to the overall economic damages of a storm.

    They find that, even when controlling for levels of coastal development, storms that pass through a marine heatwave during their rapid intensification cause 93% higher economic damages than storms that do not.

    They identify 71 marine heatwave-influenced storms that cause more than $1bn (inflation-adjusted across the dataset) in damages, compared to 45 storms that cause those levels of damage without the influence of marine heatwaves.

    This quantification of the cyclones’ economic impact is one of the study’s most “important contributions”, says Mawren.

    The authors also note that the continued development in coastal regions may increase the likelihood of tropical cyclone damages over time.

    Towards forecasting

    The study notes that the increased damages caused by marine heatwave-influenced tropical cyclones, along with the projected increases in marine heatwaves, means such storms “should be given greater consideration” in planning for future climate change.

    For Radfar and Moftakhari, the new study emphasises the importance of understanding the interactions between extreme events, such as tropical cyclones and marine heatwaves.

    Moftakhari notes that extreme events in the future are expected to become both more intense and more complex. This becomes a problem for climate resilience because “we basically design in the future based on what we’ve observed in the past”, he says. This may lead to underestimating potential hazards, he adds.

    Mawren agrees, telling Carbon Brief that, in order to “fully capture the intensification potential”, future forecasts and risk assessments must account for marine heatwaves and other ocean phenomena, such as subsurface heat.

    Lin adds that the actions needed to reduce storm damages “take on the order of decades to do right”. He tells Carbon Brief:

    “All these [planning] decisions have to come by understanding the future uncertainty and so this research is a step forward in understanding how we can better refine our predictions of what might happen in the future.”

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