Senior citizens in peril due to hurricane devastation being moved to safety (AP Image) | Photo Credit: AP

If a report in the western media is to be believed, the world should soon be bracing for hurricanes that are far worse than any that mankind has ever witnessed till date. In this report in the guardian.com that has been "adapted from This Is The Way The World Ends, by Jeff Nesbit", the article says the hardcover book warns of a new category called "Category 6" being introduced in measuring the fury of hurricanes and tropicals storms, soon.

While it is true that there is no such thing as a category 6 hurricane or tropical storm - yet, it could soon be considered for introduction as a combination of warmer oceans and more water in the atmosphere could soon begin wreaking havoc. Climate Change is real and here.

It is well-known that the highest level of categories is the top of the scale at No 5 which is used to grade the most powerful, most devastating hurricanes or tropical storms that are so potentially powerful that they are capable of destroying entire cities like New Orleans or New York, says the report.

Till today, meteorologists and scientists over gear up to introduce category 6 storm which may have relentless winds that exceed 200 miles per hour and can sweep away everything in its path. Until now, such a storm wasn’t possible, so there was no need for a new category above category 5, says guardian.com.

WHAT IS DRIVING DESTRUCTIVE HURRICANES?

Blame it on global warming and climate change, never mind how much ever the US President Donald Trump may want to deny it.

Ecologists say that this generation sees 5 to 8% more water vapor circulating throughout the atmosphere -- way beyond what the earlier generations saw. Hurricanes are typically formed in deep oceans. This water vapour and the warmer temperatures are driving water up from the deep ocean, creating the potential for superstorms that we haven’t seen before. So when this combination of warmer oceans and more water in the earth’s atmosphere stir up a storm that we are most likely not at all prepared to handle, category 6 tropical storms are knocking at the door.

WHAT COULD A CATEGORY 6 STORM DO?

The report states musings by Jeff Masters, one of the most respected meteorologists in America who has launched a lively debate among his colleagues with a provocative post in July of 2016 on the Weather Underground. “A ‘black swan’ hurricane – a storm so extreme and wholly unprecedented that no one could have expected it – hit the Lesser Antilles Islands in October 1780,” Masters wrote to open the post. “Deservedly called The Great Hurricane of 1780, no Atlantic hurricane in history has matched its death toll of 22,000. So intense were the winds of the Great Hurricane that it peeled the bark off of trees – something only EF5 tornadoes with winds in excess of 200mph have been known to do.”

Masters reportedly claims that “bark-stripping” mega-storms are nearly certain to start appearing. “Hurricanes even more extreme than the Great Hurricane of 1780 can occur in a warming climate, and can be anticipated by combining physical knowledge with historical data,” wrote Masters, who once flew into the strongest hurricane at the time as one of Noaa’s “Hurricane Hunters” in the 1980s. “Such storms, which have never occurred in the historical record, can be referred to as ‘grey swan’ hurricanes,” states guardian.com.

Masters quotes two of the best hurricane scientists in the world -- Kerry Emanuel of MIT and Ning Lin of Princeton –- who published the most detailed hurricane model in history in August 2015. Masters also wonders if mankind has a proper plan in place to tackle such a situation. A US city document from 2010 gauges that a category 5 hurricane could cause 2,000 deaths and $250bn in damage and also that it "could be far worse."

Cities on the cast will require a good evacuation plan. More at peril are cities in the Persian Gulf and even in the US. Hurricane expert Emanuel says that a city like Dubai -- which has undergone a really rapid expansion in recent years -- is even more unprepared as it has never seen a hurricane in recorded history but will face one at some point soon.

“Now they may want to think about elevating buildings or houses, or building a seawall to somehow protect them, just in case,” guardian.com quotes Emanuel. Masters warns that mankind can ignore these warning signs at its own peril.