Flooded houses Houses at the Highland Glen subdivision stand in floodwaters due to Hurricane Harvey in Spring, Texas, on Monday, Aug. 28, 2017. A deluge of rain and rising floodwaters left Houston immersed and helpless, crippling a global center of the oil industry and testing the economic resiliency of a state that's home to almost 1 in 12 U.S. workers. (Photo: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg)

Human activity is making hurricanes worse, according to a pair of studies published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.

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Urban asphalt, buildings cause atmospheric drag & friction

Climate change increased rainfall from 5% to 10% in hurricanes Katrina (2005), Irma (2017) and Maria (2017), wrote two researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The other study, by scientists from Princeton University and the University of Iowa, finds that Houston's urban footprint increased the odds of extreme flooding seen during Hurricane Harvey (2017) by about 21 times.

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