A category 6 hurricane? Scientist and author of Category 6 hurricane paper highlights how climate change will impact future storms [Video]

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States has been in the headlines since it was released earlier this month. Now known as the infamous Category 6 hurricane paper, it gained widespread attention and sparked conversations on the future of storms.

On Monday, ABC13 Meteorologist Elyse Smith had the opportunity to speak to one of the paper’s co-authors, who was interested in clarifying the main point of the study.

“Our motivation was simply to raise awareness that climate change is making the strongest storms stronger and increasing the risk of major hurricanes throughout the world, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean,” Michael Wehner, senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, said. “We are not advocating to put a Category 6 in the official National Hurricane Center warning categories.”

The Saffir-Simpson Scale is a wind-based damage assessment scale and how we rate …