
Does the hurricane scale need a Category 6? New climate study found 5 recent storms have met the threshold.
CBSN
As global temperatures continue to increase, making storms more intense, some researchers say that the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures a hurricane's wind speeds, doesn't adequately address the hazards associated with extreme storms. In a new study, scientists explored a hypothetical expansion of the scale to include a Category 6, and found that such a designation could help focus people of the worsening risks.
In a new study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that the scale, which was created in the early 1970s and is still used to define hurricane categories, has a "weakness": tops out at Category 5 even though "the destructive potential of the wind increases exponentially."
The hurricane categories run from 1 to 5, with Category 5 hurricanes having wind speeds of 156 mph or stronger — enough to produce "catastrophic" damage, which NOAA says can result in "complete roof failure on many residences and industrial buildings," as well as extended power outages.

Unprecedented footage of an elusive deep-sea creature came to light this week. On an expedition through the Southern Ocean last Christmas Day, researchers discovered the Gonatus antarcticus, a mysterious species of squid known to roam the freezing waters around Antarctica but never seen alive before in its natural habitat.

London — President Trump declared on Wednesday morning that a U.S. trade "deal with China is done." The American leader offered a few key details of the agreement reached between senior U.S. and Chinese trade representatives in London on Tuesday, but he acknowledged that both he and Chinese President Xi Jinping were both yet to formally sign off on the agreement.

Jerusalem — Israel deported activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday, the country's Foreign Ministry said, a day after the Gaza-bound ship she was on with 11 other people was seized by the Israeli military. Thunberg left on a flight to France and was then headed to her home country of Sweden, the Foreign Ministry said in a post on X. It posted a photo of Thunberg, a climate activist who shuns air travel, seated on a plane.