Hurricane Ian's rainfall was at least 10% wetter because of climate change, according to a rapid analysis released Thursday by scientists at Stony Brook University and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The analysis used the same methodology as a recent peer-reviewed study that looked at the influence of climate change on the 2020 hurricane season.
Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley who ran the analysis, noted that the physical relationship between air temperature and water vapor would suggest that Hurricane Ian's rainfall should have only been around 5% higher due to climate warming.
"This means that the storms are more efficient at precipitating the available moisture," Wehner said in a statement. He also cautioned that their result is a "conservative estimate."
"Climate change didn't cause the storm but it did cause it to be wetter," Wehner said.