Pollution made Hurricane Harvey worse

摘要

AIR pollution can worsen the local effects of hurricanes, according to a study of 2017's devastating Hurricane Harvey.Harvey was "one of the biggest hurricanes in the history of the US", says Renyi Zhang at Texas A&M University. It struck Texas and Louisiana in August 2017 and caused particularly severe flooding in the city of Houston, Texas. More than 100 people were killed and the storm also gave rise to major economic losses.Even at the time, many scientists argued that the severity of Harvey's impact was a catastrophe partly of our own making. For example, Houston's many tall buildings may have funnelled water vapour upwards, making the rainfall and therefore the flooding worse.