The race is on to find the six missing passengers who were aboard the Bayesian superyacht when it sank early on Monday morning.
British tycoon Mike Lynch and his daughter are among those still unaccounted for, two days after the yacht capsized off the coast of Palermo, Sicily during a heavy storm.
Now, scientists claim that climate change amplified the turbulent weather that sank the ship within minutes.
Worryingly, this could be the first of many similar catastrophes, according to the experts.
They warn a wave of ‘black swan’ events – so-called due to their extreme severity – could follow as global temperatures continue to rise.
Luxury sailboat the Bayesian (pictured) sank with 22 people on board at dawn on 19 August off Porticello, near Palermo, Italy
British tycoon Mike Lynch and his daughter are among those still unaccounted for two days after it capsized off the coast of Palermo, Sicily during a heavy storm
Italian climatologist, Luca Mercalli, said the sea surface temperature around Sicily was around 30°C (86°F) when the superyacht sank – almost 3°C higher than normal.
‘This creates an enormous source of energy that contributes to these storms,’ Mercalli said.
‘So we can’t say that this is all due to climate change, but we can say that it has an amplifying effect.’
Experts and eye witnesses have said the ship was hit by a waterspout – a swirling column of air and water mist.
Strong waterspouts are known to pose a serious danger to ships and aircraft, because of the energy of the whirling 60mph winds within them – just like a tornado on land.
But Mercalli, president of the Italian meteorological society, said it could have been a downburst, a more frequent phenomenon that doesn’t involve the rotation of the air.
‘We don’t know which it was because it all happened in the dark in the early hours of the morning, so we have no photographs,’ he said.
In Italy, waterspouts can involve winds of up to 124 miles per hour (200 km per hour), while downbursts can produce gusts of around 93 miles per hour (150 km per hour).
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Authorities and experts have said the ship was hit by a waterspout – a swirling column of air and water mist. Pictured, waterspouts in Fregenae, Italy on the same day as Bayesian yacht disaster
Statistics show that downbursts are becoming more frequent around the country, which Mercalli said may be connected to global warming.
Storms and heavy rainfall have swept down Italy in recent days after weeks of scorching heat.
‘Climate-driven catastrophes in Italy will become more frequent and more intense,’ Mercalli said.
Dr Peter Inness, meteorologist at the University of Reading, said he agrees with Mercalli that climate change increases storm conditions.
‘One major driver of the thunderstorms that generate waterspouts and downbursts is warm sea temperatures and studies have shown that more waterspouts occur when the water is very warm,’ Dr Inness told MailOnline.
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‘Part of the Mediterranean is about 3 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year and some of that warming is down to climate change.
‘However some of the warming is down to natural year-to-year variability – last year was cooler for instance.
‘In simple terms, the temperature of the ocean surface is the main source of energy for Mediterranean thunderstorms.
‘If the ocean warms up the storms have more energy to work with making their effects – heavy rain, lightning, strong winds – more intense.’
Professor Douglas Parker, a meteorologist at Leeds University, said humidity and warm air from climate change provide energy to storms ‘and make them more intense’.
The Bayesian is classified as a ‘pleasure vessel’ due to its length, very tall aluminum mast and being 37ft at its widest point
‘Over recent years, the Mediterranean has been warming more rapidly than other seas or oceans around the world,’ he told MailOnline.
‘So this is entirely consistent with global warming having made the event more likely to happen.’
MailOnline contacted the Met Office about the link between waterspouts and climate change, but a spokesperson said it would not offer comment.
The latest assessment from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found low confidence that tornadoes (over land) and waterspouts (over water) have shown any increase in response to climate change.
However, more recent research may establish a link.
What are waterspouts and how do they form?
Waterspouts are swirling columns of air and water mist that are formed over water, or move from land to water.
Strong waterspouts are known to pose a serious danger to ships and aircraft, because of the energy of the whirling 60mph winds within them – similar to a tornado.
They are often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning – making them an extra risk for people on boats.
They’re most common off the coast of Florida and the Bahamas, the Gulf of Mexico, parts of the Mediterranean including offshore Greece, as well as off the east coast of Australia.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines a waterspout as a ‘funnel which contains an intense vortex, sometimes destructive, of small horizontal extent and which occurs over a body of water’.
Waterspouts come in two types – tornadic and fair weather.
Video shared by a driver shows a tornado in Italy
Tornadic waterspouts generally begin as true tornadoes over land in association with a thunderstorm, and then move out over the water. They can be large and are capable of considerable destruction.
Fair weather waterspouts, on the other hand, form only over open water. They develop at the surface of the water and climb skyward in association with warm water temperatures and high humidity in the lowest several thousand feet of the atmosphere.
Waterspouts can form when winds blowing in two different directions run into each other.
‘Along the line where the two winds meet (called a ‘convergence line’ or ‘shear line’), there is a lot of rotating air near the surface,’ explains Dean Narramore, senior meteorologist at Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
‘The collision of the two winds makes air move upwards because it has nowhere else to go.
‘This rising air carries water vapour high into the sky where it creates rain showers, storms and cumulus clouds.’
‘As the air rises, it can tilt some of the horizontal spinning air near the surface into the vertical direction.
‘When this vertical spin concentrates at a particular point it starts sucking up water – and you have yourself a waterspout.’
Waterspouts generally occur when the air is cold and moist, wind speeds are relatively light and water temperatures are warm – so scientists expect to see more as the climate changes.
According to NOAA, the best way to avoid a waterspout is to move at a 90-degree angle to its apparent movement – and never approach one.
A dark spot on the ocean, usually only visible from the air, is the first sign of a waterspout forming.
This leads to a dense swirling ring of sea spray, called a cascade, appearing around the dark spot, which grows to become a waterspout.
They are spectacular but short lived, usually lasting no more than five minutes – but occasionally up to ten minutes.
