PARIS, France (AFP) — Climate change intensified Cyclone Chido as it barrelled toward the Indian Ocean archipelago of Mayotte, said a preliminary study by scientists studying the link between global warming and tropical storms.

The assessment by Imperial College London also estimated that cyclones of Chido’s strength were 40 per cent more likely in the warmer climate of 2024 compared to pre-industrial times.

Chido was the most damaging cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years when it made landfall Saturday, flattening tin-roof shacks in France’s poorest overseas territory.

Classified as a category four storm — the second highest on a five-point scale — Cyclone Chido crossed the small archipelago, where about one-third of the population live in makeshift housing.

The true scale of the disaster is still unknown but officials fear the death toll could eventually rise into the thousands.

Scientists at Imperial College London assessed what role global warming might have played in whipping up the wind speed and ferocity of tropical storms like Chido.

To overcome a scarcity of real-world data, they used an advanced computer model that runs millions of simulated tropical cyclones to infer what might be attributed to recent warming.

They concluded that wind speeds in the region near where Chido made landfall had increased by three miles per second compared to the climate before humanity began burning fossil fuels.

Climate change “uplifted the intensity of a tropical cyclone like ‘Chido’ from a Category 3 to Category 4”, the study said.

In the absence of conclusive studies, France’s weather service has stopped short of attributing Chido’s intensity to global warming, but says warmer oceans driven by human-caused climate change have made storms more violent.

Mayotte took the cyclone’s full force and Meteo-France said Chido’s impact was “above all the consequence of its trajectory” over the island.

The climate is nearly 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer compared to the pre-industrial era, and scientists say this extra heat in the atmosphere and oceans is stoking more frequent and volatile weather events.

Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and warmer oceans cause greater evaporation, supercharging the conditions upon which tropical storms feed.