Two days ago , an intensely powerful typhoon ripped through the midsection of the Philippines . Internationally known as Haiyan , the weakened but still dangerous storm has plowed into Vietnam . But history will record this as a Filipino disaster . I will call the typhoon by its Filipino name , Yolanda . Yolanda might have been the most powerful land-falling tropical cyclone -- this being the generic scientific term as they are called typhoons , hurricanes or simply cyclones in different parts of the world -- ever recorded by meteorologists . More analysis will be needed to finalize that ruling . But it really does n't matter now to the millions of people in the rubble of Yolanda 's wake . The strongest winds , in the narrow ring of Yolanda 's perfectly circular eyewall , passed directly through Tacloban city , a provincial capital with more than 200,000 inhabitants . Photos coming from Tacloban show almost complete devastation . An accurate death toll will take time , but it is nearly impossible to imagine that it wo n't be in the thousands . Numbers of more than 10,000 , as in some early estimates , seem possible . Many , perhaps most , were not killed by the winds but were drowned by deep storm surges . Yolanda may have broken records , and its direct hit on a major city was excruciatingly bad luck . But tropical cyclone death tolls in the thousands or higher are not nearly rare enough in the developing world . In 2008 , Cyclone Nargis likely killed more than 100,000 in Myanmar . And the Philippines , right in the world 's worst cyclone highway , are hit very often . In December , Typhoon Bopha , nearly as strong as Yolanda , hit the southern island of Mindanao and killed more than a thousand . Does it seem , in fact , that these weather disasters are happening more often ? Well , they are . The damage caused by tropical cyclones has risen dramatically in the past century everywhere it has been assessed . But essentially all of that is attributable to development of vulnerable coastlines , rather than changes in the storms themselves . The population of the Philippines , rich in vulnerable coastlines , has roughly doubled in the past 30 years . There as elsewhere , more people are simply exposed to danger . In the U.S. , dollar losses from our hurricanes have exploded . Large numbers of American casualties , though , have become rare , despite big increases in the numbers of potential victims along the coasts . ( Katrina in 2005 was the exception that proves that rule . ) Better forecasts , warnings and evacuation procedures , as well as tougher building codes and other infrastructure measures , have achieved that . Improvements are starting to take hold in the developing world as well . When Cyclone Phailin hit India 's west coast last month , there was reason to fear a repeat of the 1999 cyclone that hit nearby Orissa , killing 10,000 . Instead , good advance warning and evacuations ( with help from a storm weaker than some anticipated ) kept Phailin 's casualty count low . In the Philippines , many hundreds of thousands were reported to have been evacuated ahead of Yolanda . As awful as the death toll will surely be , it could just as surely have been much higher . But are population growth , development and emergency management the whole story ? Or is this disaster also related to global warming ? Well , it is . Climate scientists expect that tropical cyclones should become more powerful as the climate warms . There may or may not be more of them ; there may well be fewer . But the chance of getting one as strong as Yolanda -- the very worst kind -- may well be increasing . Global warming may already , in fact , have contributed to Yolanda 's power . We ca n't see that in the data ; the numbers and intensities of tropical cyclones naturally fluctuate too much from year to year for us to clearly identify a rising trend underneath that would show warming 's influence with certainty . But that does n't mean it 's not there . If the time comes that we can detect the warming signal in cyclone activity well enough to make definitive statements , it will be because the storms have intensified to a frightening degree -- and irreversibly so , for all practical purposes . Sea level rise is a much more certain consequence of warming , already easily detectable . That alone will make flooding -- likely Yolanda 's deadliest weapon -- a more severe consequence of storms as the sea starts higher before the surge . Today , as the Philippines reels from Yolanda , climate is not the main story . Our thoughts should be with the survivors and those rushing in to help them . The way to save people and property from tropical cyclones , in the near and medium-term , is to get them out of harm 's way -- in the days before landfall to the extent that 's possible ; and , even better , by not putting them there in the first place . But the changes we are making to the climate are not likely to help .
Typhoon caused devastating damage to parts of the Philippines . Higher temperatures are likely to increase power of severe storms , says Adam Sobel . Greater population living along the shore leads to bigger toll when storms strike , he says . Sobel : Higher sea level , a consequence of warming , magnifies flooding .