Many scientists say climate change has intensified Hurricane Matthew because warmer ocean waters help create stronger hurricanes. In a Democracy Now interview Thursday, Michael Mann, an atmospheric scientist at Penn State University, explained that a warmer ocean has allowed the storm to intensify “far more quickly than any other storm that we’ve seen in modern history, basically going from not even a tropical depression to a near-hurricane-strength storm over the course of, you know, less than half a day, and then, the next day, of course, strengthening into a major hurricane, a Category 5 hurricane. It’s weakened a little bit, but now it’s restrengthening.”