Climate change boosted Helene's deadly rain and wind and scientists say same is likely for Milton

Human-caused climate change boosted a devastating Hurricane Helene 's rainfall by about 10% and intensified its winds by about 11%, scientists said in a new flash study released just as a strengthening Hurricane Milton threatens the Florida coast less than two weeks later.

The warming climate boosted Helene's wind speeds by about 13 miles per hour (20.92 kilometers per hour), and made the high sea temperatures that fueled the storm 200 to 500 times more likely, World Weather Attribution calculated Wednesday from Europe. Ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) above average, WWA said.

“Hurricane Helene and the storms that were happening in the region anyway have all been amplified by the fact that the air is warmer and can hold more moisture, which meant that the rainfall totals — which, even without climate change, would have been incredibly high given the circumstances — were even higher,” Ben Clarke, a study co-author and a climate researcher at Imperial College London, said in an interview.

Milton will likely be similarly juiced, the authors said.

The scientists warned that continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to more hurricanes like Helene, with “unimaginable” floods well inland, not just on coasts. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds.

Helene made landfall in Florida with record storm surge 15 feet (4.57 meters) high and catastrophic sustained winds reaching 140 miles per hour (225.31 kilometers per hour), pummeling Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia. It decimated remote towns throughout the Appalachians, left millions without power, cellular service and supplies and killed over 230 people. Search crews in the days following continued to look for bodies. Helene was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. since Katrina in 2005.

Helene dumped more than 40 trillion gallons of rain — an unprecedented amount of water — onto the region, meteorologists estimated. That rainfall would have been much less intense if humans hadn’t warmed the climate, according to WWA, an international scientist collaborative that runs rapid climate attribution studies.

“When you start talking about the volumes involved, when you add even just a few percent on top of that, it makes it even much more destructive,” Clarke said.

Hurricanes as intense as Helene were once expected every 130 years on average, but today are about 2.5 times more likely in the region, the scientists calculated.

The WWA launched in 2015 to assess the extent which extreme weather events could be attributed to climate change. The organization’s rapid studies aren’t peer-reviewed but use peer-reviewed methods. The team of scientists tested the influence of climate change on Helene by analyzing weather data and climate models including the Imperial College Storm Model, the Climate Shift Index for oceans and the standard WWA approach, which compares an actual event with what might have been expected in a world that hasn't warmed about 1.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times.

A separate analysis of Helene last week by Department of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientists determined that climate change caused 50% more rainfall in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas, and that observed rainfall was “made up to 20 times more likely in these areas because of global warming.” That study was also not peer-reviewed but used a method published in a study about Hurricane Harvey.

Kim Cobb, director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, wasn't involved in either study. She said there are uncertainties in exactly how much climate change is supercharging storms like Helene, but “we know that it’s increasing the power and devastation of these storms.”

She said Helene and Milton should serve “as a wake up call” for emergency preparedness, resilience planning and the increased use of fossil fuels.

“Going forward, additional warming that we know will occur over the next 10 or 20 years will even worsen the statistics of hurricanes," she said, "and we will break new records.”

Analysis is already indicating climate change made possible the warmed sea temperatures that also rapidly intensified Milton. Clarke said the two massive storms in quick succession illustrates the potential future of climate change if humans don't stop it.

“As we go into the future and our results show this as well, we still have control over what trajectory this goes in as to what risks we face in the future, what costs we pay in the future," he said. "That just hinges on how we change our energy systems and how many more fossil fuels we burn.”

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

FILE - An American flag sits in floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the Shore Acres neighborhood Sept. 27, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Mike Carlson, File)

FILE - Resident Anne Schneider, right, hugs her friend Eddy Sampson as they survey damage left in the wake of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Marshall, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - Debris is strewn on the lake in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 2, 2024, in Lake Lure, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - A fireman walks through mud as they search for victims of flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Swannanoa, N.C. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

FILE - Len Frisbee dumps a wheelbarrow of dirt as he helps with clean up in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, Oct. 1, 2024, in Hot Springs, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

FILE - Arnie Bellini surveys the damages caused from Hurricane Helene on a street in Clearwater Beach, Fla., Oct. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

FILE - The St. Pete Pier is visible near high waves as Hurricane Helene makes its way toward the Florida panhandle Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (Martha Asencio-Rhine/Tampa Bay Times via AP, File)

FILE - Teresa Elder walks through a flooded Sandy Cove Drive from Hurricane Helene, Sept. 27, 2024, in Morganton, N.C. (AP Photo/Kathy Kmonicek, File)

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The social media platform X began returning to Brazil on Wednesday, after remaining inaccessible for more than a month following a clash between its owner, Elon Musk, and a justice on the country’s highest court.

Internet service providers began restoring access to the platform after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes authorized lifting X’s suspension on Tuesday.

“TWITTER IS ALIVE,” Lucas dos Santos Consoli, known as luscas on X, wrote on the platform to his more than 7 million followers.

“I'm happy that the platform decided to follow the laws of Brazil and finally adapted, after all I’ve been using the app for almost 15 years so I can’t deny that I was missing it,” the 31-year-old told The Associated Press.

De Moraes ordered the shutdown of X on Aug. 30 after a monthslong dispute with Musk over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Musk had disparaged de Moraes, calling him an authoritarian and a censor, although his rulings, including X’s nationwide suspension, were repeatedly upheld by his peers.

Musk’s company ultimately complied with all of de Moraes’ demands. They included blocking certain accounts from the platform, paying outstanding fines and naming a legal representative. Failure to do the latter had triggered the suspension.

Brazil — a highly online country of 213 million people — is one of X’s biggest markets, with estimates of its user base ranging from 20 million to 40 million.

“X is proud to return to Brazil,” the company said in a statement posted on its Global Government Affairs account. “Giving tens of millions of Brazilians access to our indispensable platform was paramount throughout this entire process. We will continue to defend freedom of speech, within the boundaries of the law, everywhere we operate.”

The Aug. 30 ban came two days after the company said it was removing all its remaining staff in Brazil. X said de Moraes had threatened to arrest its legal representative in the country, Rachel de Oliveira Villa Nova Conceição, if the company did not comply with orders to block accounts.

Brazilian law requires foreign companies to have a local legal representative to receive notifications of court decisions and swiftly take any requisite action — particularly, in X’s case, the takedown of accounts.

Sleeping Giants Brazil, a platform for activism that seeks to combat fake news and hate speech, said the resumption of X's activities in Brazil marked “a significant victory for Brazilian democracy.”

“We understand that the actions taken to ensure that X complies with Supreme Court decisions, though severe, set an important precedent: no company, regardless of its global influence, is above the law,” it said in a statement.

Some of Brazilian X’s users have migrated to other platforms, such as Meta’s Threads and, primarily, Bluesky. It’s unclear how many of them will return to X.

In a statement to the AP, Bluesky reported that it now has 10.6 million users and continues to see strong growth in Brazil. Bluesky has appointed a legal representative in the South American country.

“Never get back with your eX,” Paul Frazee, a developer at Bluesky, wrote on the platform on Tuesday.

Brazil was not the first country to ban X — but such a drastic step has generally been limited to authoritarian regimes. The platform and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest.

X’s dustup with Brazil has some parallels to the company’s dealings with the Indian government three years ago, back when it was still called Twitter and before Musk purchased it for $44 billion. In 2021, India threatened to arrest employees of Twitter (as well as Meta’s Facebook and WhatsApp), for not complying with the government’s requests to take down posts related to farmers’ protests that rocked the country.

Musk’s decision to reverse course in Brazil after publicly criticizing de Moraes isn’t surprising, said Matteo Ceurvels, research firm Emarketer’s analyst for Latin America and Spain.

“The move was pragmatic, likely driven by the economic consequences of losing access to millions of users in its third-largest market worldwide, along with the millions of dollars in associated advertising revenue,” Ceurvels said.

“Although X may not be a top priority for most advertisers in Brazil, the platform needs them more than they need it,” he said.

Ortutay reported from San Francisco

Elon Musk's X is back in Brazil after its suspension, having complied with all judicial demands

FILE - An ad by Valor media shows a photo of Elon Musk at a shopping center in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

Elon Musk's X is back in Brazil after its suspension, having complied with all judicial demands