Study: Strongest hurricanes striking US three times more frequently

The largest and most powerful hurricanes are striking the U.S. three times more frequently than they were a century ago, according to a study published Monday. 

The Danish authors of the study measured how strong a hurricane was by calculating the total area of destruction, instead of how other researchers have measured destruction, typically by the cost of the storm’s damage, NBC News reported. 

{mosads}Hurricanes with a total area of destruction of 467 square miles are in the top 10 percent of storms since 1900. These storms are happening 3.3 times more frequently amid global climate change, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“It’s the most damaging ones that are increasing the most,” lead author Aslak Grinsted, a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen, told NBC News. “This is exactly what you would expect with climate models.”

Eight of 20 storms in the top 10 percent have happened in the last 16 years, Grinsted said.

Climate experts have attributed high temperatures in the ocean and the atmosphere to causing an uptick in extreme weather events.