Climate change is responsible for making hurricanes that occurred during 2020 wetter.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, found that human-caused climate change led to a 5 percent increase in rainfall in all named storms and an 8 percent increase in rainfall during hurricane-strength storms.
Author Kevin Reed noted in a statement that more rain during hurricanes can make them more dangerous.
“Hurricanes are devastating events, and storms that produce more frequent hourly rain are even more dangerous in producing damage flooding, storm surge, and destruction in its path,” Reed said.
“Our findings indicate that environmental changes caused by humans are signaling more and quicker rainfall, which have direct consequences for coastal communities and sometimes outlying areas,” he added.
The researchers used modeling that compared a simulation of the actual world to simulations of a world without human interference in the climate system.
The 2020 season had 30 named storms, those with winds of at least 39 miles per hour, which is the most on record.
So far, climate change has been responsible for more than 1 degree Celsius of warming. Global leaders have said limiting the warming to about 1.5 degrees is necessary to curb its most damaging effects.