This rising sea level is a threat to the people of Puerto Rico especially those who live on the coast where their homes will be more likely to flood. The sea level in Puerto Rico has risen four inches since 1960 and is expected to continue to rise one inch every 15 years (Environmental Protection Agency, 2016). Rising sea level is a significant global concern. Hurricanes are a natural phenomenon, but human-caused global warming is clearly exacerbating the magnitude and frequency of the hurricanes, particularly in islands in the Caribbean. While Hurricanes Maria and Irma both affected Puerto Ricans, scientists believe that severe storms like these will occur more frequently due to the effects resulting from human-caused global warming. The power outage in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria remains the largest power outage in United States history (Santiago, 2018). The timing of Hurricane Maria was particularly damaging because Puerto Ricans were still without power and clean water and were just starting to rebuild their communities from damage incurred from Irma by the time Maria hit (Steinbuch, 2018).
Hurricane Maria’s official death toll is 64 people, but studies show that about 70 times more people died because of the storm (Kishore, 2018 Robles, 2018). As discussed above, Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September of 2017, just 2 weeks later the island was hit with the category 5 storm, Hurricane Irma (US Department of Commerce, 2017). A continued rise in the number and intensity of hurricanes should be expected with global warming. Lower economic areas are not as resilient and are not being able to bounce back from disasters as quickly as more affluent areas. Extreme storms have the ability to widen the gap between the wealthy and the poor in Puerto Rico. Moreover, anthropogenic climate change is to blame for the intensity of the storms hitting Puerto Rico and other islands in the Caribbean (IPCC, 2014). 97% of published climate scientists agree that humans are to blame for the warming that has taken place on our planet over the past half-century (Cook, 2016). The United States is one of the main contributors to greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere due to its burning of fossil fuels (Environmental Protection Agency, 2017).