Hurricanes and tropical cyclones are some of the most destructive extreme weather events on the planet. NASA has declared them “the most violent storms on Earth.” And what we’ve experienced recently is just a taste of what Mother Nature will hurl at us in years to come.

The superstorms that have been raging this century are literally off the charts. Scientists are considering adding a category 6 to the current five-category rating system. The new level will account for monster storms with winds in excess of 200 mph.

The first of these have already appeared. Hurricane Patricia, which ravaged Mexico in 2015, was the most intense storm to ever make landfall, packing winds up to 215 mph.

Since 2000, the Atlantic has averaged three major hurricanes, defined as a Category 3 or greater, per year — up from two in the previous century. By 2100, there could be five to eight major hurricanes per year, according to a study published in the journal Science.

We won’t have to wait until 2100 to experience hurricane hell. A recent climate model from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) simulated changes to the Earth’s atmosphere and predicted that between 2016 and 2035, the world will experience 11 percent more major hurricanes, according to a study published by the American Meteorological Society.

How does a warming planet create more, and stronger, hurricanes? Oceans have absorbed about 93 percent of the heat trapped on Earth by greenhouse gases. Those warmer waters evaporate, putting more water in the air that can come down as rain.

In addition, hotter ocean surface temperatures make storm surges more severe, speed up the rate at which storms intensify, and provide storms with more energy, according to the NOAA.

Hurricane Florence in the Carolinas this September killed over 40 people and caused nearly $17 billion in damages. Despite having been downgraded from a Category 4 storm to a Category 1 by the time it made landfall, Florence dumped 30 inches of rain on parts of the Carolinas, making it the second-rainiest storm in 70 years. It was surpassed only by Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which inundated Texas with 60 inches of rain. A recent study from Stony Brook University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research concluded that Florence was made 50 percent worse as a result of climate change.

This escalating cycle has deadly and devastating consequences, especially to coastal infrastructure and the US economy.

As intense flooding from these storms continues to increase, the costs are growing exponentially. Hurricanes, already the most expensive extreme weather event, currently cost the US an average $28 billion in damages. Those costs are projected to rise as much as 40 percent by 2075, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

In addition to breaking the record for most expensive hurricane season, 2017 boasted the highest ocean temperature on record as well as the largest number of rapidly intensifying storms. Hurricane Maria stunned forecasters when it transformed from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 behemoth in just 24 hours, completely devastating Puerto Rico as a result.

Climate change will increase the number of these rapidly intensifying storms, according to Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane theorist at MIT.

“A storm that intensifies [70 mph or greater] in the 24 hours just before landfall, occurring on average once per century in the climate of the late twentieth century, may occur every 5–10 years by the end of this century, “ Kerry Emmanuel said in a study published by the American Meteorological Society.

What scares the Goddard Institute’s Schmidt the most is that many nations are woefully unprepared to deal with these disasters over and over again due to a lack of resilience — leaving thousands dead, and millions homeless or without power in their wake.

“Look at the response to Katrina, to Sandy, to Harvey, to Irma in Barbudo and to Maria in Puerto Rico,” he said. “You know all the bad things that make you think, ‘Oh my God, you know this is terrible, we have people dying in the streets because they can’t get to a hospital.’”