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April 12, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090402143744.htm | Hispaniola Was A Tropical Cyclone 'Target' Five Times In 2008 | In 2008, residents of Hispaniola experienced one of their worst hurricane seasons in recent memory. Hispaniola, the Caribbean island containing Haiti and the Dominican Republic, is located directly within the hurricane belt, and was pummeled by five tropical cyclones last year: Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike, and low over the Dominican Republic on Sept. 24 what would become Kyle after moving north. More than 800 people were reported dead or missing from these storms. | Haiti occupies the western third of Hispaniola, while the Dominican Republic covers the eastern two-thirds. Hispaniola is the second-largest and most populated island of the Antilles. It's located between Cuba to its west, and Puerto Rico to its east.Hispaniola, famous as Columbus' first stop in the "New World" in 1492, has often been the target of Atlantic hurricanes. In 1979 Hurricane David claimed more than a thousand lives. On this mountainous island, landslides and flooding are usually the major causes of destruction. "Located right in the center of 'hurricane alley,' Hispaniola has a long and brutal history of hurricane destruction," notes climatologist Bill Patzert, Climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, suffers from severe environmental degradation which makes hurricane landfalls especially damaging and deadly," Patzert added.NASA satellites tracked and recorded many aspects of the tropical cyclones that hit Hispaniola. Satellites including: Aqua, CloudSat, Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), Landsat, QuikScat, Terra and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM).Lake Enriqullo, located in the southwestern corner of the Dominican Republic, increased in size from all of the rainfall from the tropical cyclones. Two satellite images of the lake's increase in size were captured by the Landsat satellite. Landsat is a joint NASA / U.S. Geological Survey series of Earth-observing satellites that's been in operation since 1972. This natural color image is a combination of a Landsat 7 image from August 2, 2007 and an image from August 20, 2008 shows the lake's expansion colored red. The red area reveals that the lake has increased in size, especially along its eastern- and westernmost edges, and the reduced surface area of Lake Enriqullo's central island indicates greater water volume.Fay was an unusual tropical cyclone because it had eight landfalls, four of them in Florida alone. Fay's torrential rainfall caused extensive floods across the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, and Florida. After a landfall in Hispaniola on Aug. 15, and despite its course over the mountainous southern portion of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, Fay remained a tropical storm. According to the National Hurricane Center's final report on Fay, "Water levels in reservoirs had been running low and water restrictions were about to be implemented. Fay’s motion across the northern Caribbean Sea produced prolonged heavy rain events in Hispaniola and Cuba. News reports indicate that floods devastated the Haitian island of Gonavé. The saturated ground conditions created by the heavy rains from Fay set the stage for an even greater flood devastation and resultant loss of life caused by heavy rains produced by Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna, and Ike that traversed Haiti during the ensuing two weeks. In the Dominican Republic, rainfall totals exceeding 7-10 inches occurred primarily over the southern half of the country."Hurricane Gustav crossed onto Haiti's southern peninsula on Aug. 26, 2008 as a Category 1 storm with 70 mph winds that killed at least one person. Gustav's rains caused a landslide near the Haitian town of Brazillienne, and floodwaters split the town of Jacmel in half where it made landfall. According to the National Hurricane Center's final storm report, "Heavy rainfall and widespread freshwater flooding occurred along the path of Gustav. Camp Perrin, Haiti reported a storm total rainfall of 10.75 inches, while Baharona, Dominican Republic reported a storm total rainfall of 9.71 inches." Gustav had formed only one day before about 260 miles southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.Just one week later on Sept. 3, Tropical Storm Hanna dumped very heavy rainfall totals of much of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico as its center passed just north and northwest of those islands. The maximum rainfall reported in the Dominican Republic was 14.17 inches at the town of Oviedo. Haitian residents were forced onto rooftops to avoid serious flooding. Haiti's deforested hillsides were the victim of mudslides from torrential rains. Hanna had killed 21 people and cut off the city of Gonaives with flood waters.Hurricane Ike bore down on Cuba after roaring across low-lying islands on Sept. 7 tearing apart houses, wiping out crops and worsening floods in Haiti that had already killed more than 300 people. Heavy rains also pelted the Dominican Republic, Haiti's neighbor on the island of Hispaniola, where about 4,000 people were evacuated from northern coastal towns.According to the National Hurricane Center's final report on Ike, "Parts of Hispaniola, especially Haiti, were devastated by widespread flooding and mud slides from four consecutive impacts by Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricanes Gustav, Hanna, and Ike. Overall, 793 people died in Haiti from the four storms, with another 300 people reported missing. It is estimated that 74 deaths are directly attributable to the effects of Ike. Ike exacerbated the humanitarian disaster in Haiti, wiping out the food supply, shelter, and transportation networks across the nation. Two deaths have been reported in the Dominican Republic."NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has been measuring rainfall from space ever since it was launched in November 1997. The TRMM analysis above shows a complete history of rainfall with Hurricane Ike from when it was named on Sept. 1, 2008, through Sept. 15, 2008.Only rainfall data attributed to Hurricane Ike were used in the TRMM calibrated rainfall analysis. Merged rainfall Data (3B42) from TRMM, other NASA satellites, U.S. Department of Defense satellites, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration polar-orbiting satellites, and geostationary satellites were used in the analysis.The low pressure system that ambled its way slowly over the Dominican Republic on Sept. 23–24 became Kyle after leaving Hispaniola. According to the National Hurricane Center report on Kyle, "The low took two days to cross the island, producing disorganized thunderstorms and a large area of squalls within a convective band over the adjacent Caribbean Sea." It became a tropical depression on Sept. 25, 100 miles north of the Dominican Republic and later became Kyle. Over Hispaniola, the low brought heavy rains, flash floods and mud slides.While residents of Hispaniola are hoping for a calmer hurricane season in 2009, NASA satellites will be keeping a close eye on the Atlantic Ocean basin. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
March 28, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090326141553.htm | Airborne Dust Reduction Plays Larger Than Expected Role In Determining Atlantic Temperature | The recent warming trend in the Atlantic Ocean is largely due to reductions in airborne dust and volcanic emissions during the past 30 years, according to a new study. | Since 1980, the tropical North Atlantic has been warming by an average of a quarter-degree Celsius (a half-degree Fahrenheit) per decade. Though this number sounds small, it can translate to big impacts on hurricanes, which thrive on warmer water, says Amato Evan, a researcher with the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies and lead author of the new study. For example, the ocean temperature difference between 1994, a quiet hurricane year, and 2005's record-breaking year of storms, was just one degree Fahrenheit.More than two-thirds of this upward trend in recent decades can be attributed to changes in African dust storm and tropical volcano activity during that time, report Evan and his colleagues at UW-Madison and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a new paper. Their findings will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Evan and his colleagues have previously shown that African dust and other airborne particles can suppress hurricane activity by reducing how much sunlight reaches the ocean and keeping the sea surface cool. Dusty years predict mild hurricane seasons, while years with low dust activity — including 2004 and 2005 — have been linked to stronger and more frequent storms.In the new study, they combined satellite data of dust and other particles with existing climate models to evaluate the effect on ocean temperature. They calculated how much of the Atlantic warming observed during the last 26 years can be accounted for by concurrent changes in African dust storms and tropical volcanic activity, primarily the eruptions of El Chichón in Mexico in 1982 and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.In fact, it is a surprisingly large amount, Evan says. "A lot of this upward trend in the long-term pattern can be explained just by dust storms and volcanoes," he says. "About 70 percent of it is just being forced by the combination of dust and volcanoes, and about a quarter of it is just from the dust storms themselves."The result suggests that only about 30 percent of the observed Atlantic temperature increases are due to other factors, such as a warming climate. While not discounting the importance of global warming, Evan says this adjustment brings the estimate of global warming impact on Atlantic more into line with the smaller degree of ocean warming seen elsewhere, such as the Pacific."This makes sense, because we don't really expect global warming to make the ocean [temperature] increase that fast," he says.Volcanoes are naturally unpredictable and thus difficult to include in climate models, Evan says, but newer climate models will need to include dust storms as a factor to accurately predict how ocean temperatures will change."We don't really understand how dust is going to change in these climate projections, and changes in dust could have a really good effect or a really bad effect," he says.Satellite research of dust-storm activity is relatively young, and no one yet understands what drives dust variability from year to year. However, the fundamental role of the temperature of the tropical North Atlantic in hurricane formation and intensity means that this element will be critical to developing a better understanding of how the climate and storm patterns may change."Volcanoes and dust storms are really important if you want to understand changes over long periods of time," Evan says. "If they have a huge effect on ocean temperature, they're likely going to have a huge effect on hurricane variability as well."The new paper is coauthored by Ralf Bennartz and Daniel Vimont of UW-Madison and Andrew Heidinger and James Kossin of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and UW-Madison. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
March 24, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090320164313.htm | Understanding Channel-Like Erosion | The March issue of | The topic has local interest because it has recently been observed that significant erosion is occurring on New Orleans area levees primarily caused by seepage driven flow.Recently work began by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to plug in the shipping channel known as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal (MRGO) that extends for 76 miles from New Orleans through wetlands to the Gulf of Mexico. The erosion of thousands of acres of cypress wetlands and marsh caused by the channel has been blamed for increased storm surge during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.“Our theory would suggest that seepage caused by underwater flow will continue to erode and weaken the levee system around New Orleans, but the rate of this erosion should gradually slow with time,” says Straub. “Hopefully this research will aid the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in identifying levees that need repair and assessing the lifespan of structures like the MRGO that are not planned for upkeep.”Using fieldwork conducted in the Florida Panhandle, Straub and his fellow researchers were able to better understand the process of seepage erosion, which occurs when the re-emergence of groundwater at the surface shapes the Earth's topography. In the The paper suggests that the velocity at which channel heads advance is proportional to the flux of groundwater to the heads. The researchers used field observations and numerical modeling to come up with the theory. To demonstrate how it works, they created computer animations depicting how the network of deep ravines in Florida grew over time.Straub says that this theory of growth laws for seepage driven channels can also be applied to better understand the topographical features of planet Mars, as well as Earth.“Within earth science, the subject is of interest because of its fundamental role in sculpting landscapes. The animations provide an explicit answer to the age-old question of how particularly striking and visually attractive erosional features on Earth's surface attained their modern form,” explains Straub. “The problem is of topical interest in planetary science because channelized features on Mars are thought, but not proven, to have arisen from groundwater flow.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
March 19, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090313110752.htm | Lessons From Hurricane Rita Not Practiced During Hurricane Ike | A new Rice University report released yesterday, exactly six months after Hurricane Ike slammed the Texas Gulf Coast, suggests that people did not practice the lessons learned from Hurricane Rita. | According to the study, 75 percent of Harris County residents say they would evacuate if a Category 4 hurricane threatened Houston. This is a significant potential increase over the 24 percent of residents who left during the Category 2 Hurricane Ike. It's also a significant increase over the 52 percent of Harris County residents who evacuated in 2005 during the Category 4 Hurricane Rita but found themselves stuck in miles-long traffic jams on highways or stranded as the storm approached."Essentially, this study shows that people didn't learn from Hurricane Rita," said the report's co-author Robert Stein, the Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science at Rice. "Had Hurricane Ike been a severe storm -- a Category 3 or 4 -- more people would have evacuated, and we would have experienced roadway gridlock."The reports shows that significantly fewer people evacuated during Hurricane Ike than during Hurricane Rita, but a large portion of the population left areas that were not under an evacuation order."The timing of evacuations showed no improvement over the experience during Hurricane Rita, when roadways experienced paralyzing gridlock," Stein said. "People evacuating from hurricane Ike all left too late, potentially creating the same conditions that existed during Hurricane Rita had a larger population evacuated."The report details the results of surveys that assessed people's experience before, during and after each hurricane's landfall. The surveys were conducted in the weeks immediately after each storm -- Sept. 29-Oct. 3 for the Hurricane Rita survey, and Sept. 23-Oct. 24 for the Hurricane Ike survey.The report is intended to enable policymakers and leaders to be more effective in getting their constituents to comply with evacuation orders.The report also found:The release of this report coincides with a free public forum at Rice University March 12 featuring Houston Mayor Bill White and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett discussing the leadership challenges they had to overcome to guide Houston through the disaster. "Leadership in Crisis: Guiding Houston through the Storm" will be held from 6 to 7 p.m. in Sewall Hall, Room 301, on the Rice campus, 6100 Main St. Stein and report co-authors Leonardo Dueñas-Osorio, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, and Devika Subramanian, professor of computer science and in electrical and computer engineering, will be available to take questions before and after the event.The full report is available at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
March 16, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315155112.htm | Sea Level Rise Due To Global Warming Poses Threat To New York City | Global warming is expected to cause the sea level along the northeastern U.S. coast to rise almost twice as fast as global sea levels during this century, putting New York City at greater risk for damage from hurricanes and winter storm surge, according to a new study led by a Florida State University researcher. | Jianjun Yin, a climate modeler at the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) at Florida State, said there is a better than 90 percent chance that the sea level rise along this heavily populated coast will exceed the mean global sea level rise by the year 2100. The rising waters in this region -- perhaps by as much as 18 inches or more -- can be attributed to thermal expansion and the slowing of the North Atlantic Ocean circulation because of warmer ocean surface temperatures.Yin and colleagues Michael Schlesinger of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Ronald Stouffer of Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University are the first to reach that conclusion after analyzing data from 10 state-of-the-art climate models, which have been used for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report. Yin's study is published in the journal "The northeast coast of the United States is among the most vulnerable regions to future changes in sea level and ocean circulation, especially when considering its population density and the potential socioeconomic consequences of such changes," Yin said. "The most populous states and cities of the United States and centers of economy, politics, culture and education are located along that coast."The researchers found that the rapid sea-level rise occurred in all climate models whether they depicted low, medium or high rates of greenhouse-gas emissions. In a medium greenhouse-gas emission scenario, the New York City coastal area would see an additional rise of about 8.3 inches above the mean sea level rise that is expected around the globe because of human-induced climate change.Thermal expansion and the melting of land ice, such as the Greenland ice sheet, are expected to cause the global sea-level rise. The researchers projected the global sea-level rise of 10.2 inches based on thermal expansion alone. The contribution from the land ice melting was not assessed in this study due to uncertainty.Considering that much of the metropolitan region of New York City is less than 16 feet above the mean sea level, with some parts of lower Manhattan only about 5 feet above the mean sea level, a rise of 8.3 inches in addition to the global mean rise would pose a threat to this region, especially if a hurricane or winter storm surge occurs, Yin said.Potential flooding is just one example of coastal hazards associated with sea-level rise, Yin said, but there are other concerns as well. The submersion of low-lying land, erosion of beaches, conversion of wetlands to open water and increase in the salinity of estuaries all can affect ecosystems and damage existing coastal development.Although low-lying Florida and Western Europe are often considered the most vulnerable to sea level changes, the northeast U.S. coast is particularly vulnerable because the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is susceptible to global warming. The AMOC is the giant circulation in the Atlantic with warm and salty seawater flowing northward in the upper ocean and cold seawater flowing southward at depth. Global warming could cause an ocean surface warming and freshening in the high-latitude North Atlantic, preventing the sinking of the surface water, which would slow the AMOC. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
March 13, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090313171312.htm | Main U.S. Federal Disaster Relief Law Has Fallen Behind Modern Threat Levels, Expert Says | In new research published in the | Two years after Hurricane Katrina, and six years after the September 11 attacks, the Federal government still lacks the legal authority to provide rapid financial assistance to residents, small businesses and municipal governments following a major disaster, according to the Journal article (Vol. 6 : Issue 1, Article 13, January 2009).Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU, faults the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act for:Not recognizing 21st century threats such as chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological attacks or accidents as legal grounds for a major disaster declaration by the President;Failing to establish a difference between the scale of rural and urban disaster - the Stafford Act offers the same level of aid for a blizzard in a rural community as it does for a major earthquake in a metropolis.Moss recommends that Congress:Following a catastrophe, waive proof of insurance requirements and provide immediate assistance to those in need, which can later be reimbursed to the government when insurance payments are made."It is time for Congress to strengthen the nation's capacity to respond to the catastrophes that we face in the twenty-first century," writes Professor Moss. "We face serious threats of biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear attacks that require fundamental reform of the Stafford Act. The time for action is now; we must create a new set of policies that can protect the nation from the risks of the modern era."The research was conducted under the auspices of New York University's Center for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response (CCPR). CCPR Director Brad Penuel underscored the importance of Professor Moss' work."CCPR's report is a significant contribution to the dialogue on making America safer in times of catastrophe, be it from a natural event or one derived from human actions. I applaud the findings of this report and Professor Moss for highlighting the role academia can play in understanding politically and socially complex issues like disaster preparedness and response," he said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
March 11, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090302111153.htm | NASA Study Finds 'Pre-Existing Condition' Fueled Killer Cyclone | A "pre-existing condition" in the North Indian Ocean stoked the sudden intensification of last year's Tropical Cyclone Nargis just before its devastating landfall in Burma, according to a new NASA/university study. The cyclone became Burma's worst natural disaster ever and one of the deadliest cyclones of all time. | Scientists at the National Taiwan University, Taipei; and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., used data from satellite altimeters, measurements of ocean depth and temperature and an ocean model to analyze the ocean conditions present at the time of the catastrophic storm. Nargis intensified from a relatively weak category 1 storm to a category 4 monster during its final 24 hours before making landfall on May 2, 2008.Lead author I-I Lin of National Taiwan University and her team found the ocean conditions Nargis encountered created the perfect recipe for disaster. Cyclones thrive on warm layers of ocean water that are at least 26 degrees Celsius (79 degrees Fahrenheit). As they traverse the ocean, they typically draw deep, cold water up to the ocean surface, a process that limits their ability to strengthen, and even weakens them as they evolve. However, Nargis passed over a pre-existing warm ocean feature in the Bay of Bengal where upper ocean warm waters extended deeper than normal, from 73 to 101 meters (240 to 331 feet)."This abnormally thick, warm water layer, which formed about a month earlier, kept deeper, colder waters from being drawn to the surface, increasing the energy available to fuel Nargis' growth by 300 percent," said Lin. "Combined with other atmospheric conditions conducive to strengthening, this warm ocean feature allowed Nargis to reach speeds of 115 knots [213 kilometers, or 132 miles, per hour] at landfall. Had Nargis not encountered this warm ocean feature, it would likely not have had sufficient energy to intensify rapidly."Nargis' rapid intensification occurred predominantly over warm ocean regions where sea surface temperatures ranged between 30 and 30.2 degrees Celsius (about 86 degrees Fahrenheit) and sea surface heights ranged from 6 to 20 centimeters (2.4 to 7.9 inches) above normal. Between May 1 and 2, 2008, the storm intensified from category 1 to category 4. When Nargis briefly passed outside the warm ocean region on May 2, it weakened somewhat, only to strengthen once again as it returned to the warm ocean feature. Warm ocean features in the Gulf of Mexico contributed to the rapid intensification of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.Lin said the research will contribute to improving our understanding of and ability to forecast catastrophic events like Nargis in the future, reducing loss of life and property. "Such a capability is particularly needed in developing countries, where less advanced cyclone monitoring and warning systems can leave people with little time to escape from disaster," she said.The scientists compared the thermal structure of the upper ocean waters within the warm ocean feature during the storm with its thermal structure under normal climatological conditions. Study data came from the international Argo float program, NASA's Jason-1 satellite, the European Space Agency's Environmental Satellite, the U.S. Navy's GEOSAT Follow-On satellite and NOAA's Global Temperature and Salinity Profile Program data base. The satellite data were used to derive the upper ocean thermal structure for regions where no suitable direct measurements were available."This research demonstrates a significant potential benefit of using altimeter data for operational weather forecasting and tropical cyclone intensity predictions," said study co-author Tim Liu of JPL. "Current hurricane analyses include variations in ocean heat, which can be revealed by ocean altimeters. Satellites like NASA's Jason-1 and Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason-2 make important contributions to the operational monitoring and prediction of tropical cyclones, as have other NASA satellites."Results of the study were published this month in Geophysical Research Letters.For more information on Jason-1 and NASA's satellite altimetry programs, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
February 5, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090204112229.htm | Katrina-flooded Homes May Contain Harmful Levels Of Contaminants | A recent study by LSU engineers suggests that Katrina-flooded homes may contain harmful levels of contaminants, particularly aerosols and gases, which could expose first-responders, residents and any others entering such homes to serious and lasting health risks. The results could also be applied to similar flooding events that might occur in the future. | Nicholas Ashley, Louis Thibodeaux and Kalliat Valsaraj, all from LSU's Department of Chemical Engineering, developed a model describing various levels of contaminants, some of which are inhalable and therefore would not require direct contact for contamination to occur.The paper was originally presented by Ashley, a Ph.D. candidate, at the national meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in November 2008, where it tied for first place with papers from MIT and the University of Iowa."The extensive sampling conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and other government agencies post-Katrina was restricted solely to outdoor sediment," said Ashley. "We proposed that the material that gets inside the flooded homes could be different, and possibly more highly contaminated, than that deposited outside. It turns out that we were right."The topic was an easy one to focus on, since all researchers involved were witness to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."As researchers from Louisiana, impacted by a major natural disaster, we felt obligated to understand the environmental chemodynamic effects in the state and develop mathematical means of forecasting concentration levels in future occurrences," said Louis Thibodeaux, Jesse Coates Professor of Chemical Engineering. "This research was undertaken to fully explore what likely pathways of exposure a major catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina might take in the future."The study has already attracted a great deal of attention from peers within the engineering community, and earned the trio accolades from the publishing journal's editor-in-chief."This is an excellent and important study by one of the top research teams in the nation. It will help us better prepare first responders for the additional risks that may be posed by such events," said Domenico Grasso, editor-in-chief and dean and professor in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Vermont-Burlington. But this is not the first time LSU's College of Engineering has been responsible for such novel and innovative research."The Department of Chemical Engineering and the College of Engineering at LSU have long traditions of excellence in environmental science and engineering," said Valsaraj, chair of chemical engineering at LSU. "This is a continuation of that tradition." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
February 3, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090202175142.htm | Newly Described Contaminant Sources In Katrina-flooded Homes Pose Health Risks | Post-Katrina flooded homes may contain harmful levels of contaminants in addition to sediment deposits. Indoor gases, mold films, and aerosols may also have exposed residents, first responders, and demolition crews to dangerous contaminant levels without the need for direct skin contact, according to a modeling study. | The research is published in the April 2009 issue (Volume 26, Number 3) of Environmental Engineering Science, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.The model published by Nicholas Ashley, Kalliat Valsaraj, and Louis Thibodeaux, from Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge, details the possible types and levels of volatile and semi-volatile organic pollutants that might be present in the multiple indoor phases, or MIPs, inside Katrina-flooded homes. These include hazardous chemicals present in the inhalable vapor phase, in mold films, or in aerosolized spores.The study, entitled, "Multiphase Contaminant Distributions Inside Flooded Homes in New Orleans, Louisiana, after Hurricane Katrina: A Modeling Study," concludes that these newly identified inhalation exposure routes could present a significant health risk to persons who simply walk inside and breathe the air in contaminated homes, even if there is no dermal contact with the sediment covering the floors or the mold growing on the walls and other surfaces."This is an excellent and important study by one of the top research teams in the nation. It will help us better prepare first responders for the additional risks that may be posed by such events," according to Domenico Grasso, PhD, Editor-in-Chief and Dean and Professor in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Vermont (Burlington). | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
January 26, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090122110650.htm | Decline In Health Among Older Adults Affected By Hurricane Katrina | In the year following Hurricane Katrina, the health of survivors 65 and over declined nearly 4 times that of a national sample of older adults not affected by the disaster, according to a study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. | The August 2005 storm was one of the most powerful and deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history. Hurricane Katrina displaced thousands and severely disrupted access to health care. Researchers monitored enrollees of a New Orleans-area managed care organization and found morbidity rates increased 12.6 percent compared with 3.4 percent nationwide. “In the year following Hurricane Katrina, morbidity rates increased substantially,” said Lynda Burton, ScD, lead author of the study and adjunct associate professor with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management. “Morbidity rates among non-white Orleans residents were the highest when compared to other parishes and there was a significant increase in the prevalence of patients with cardiac diagnoses, congestive heart failure and sleep problems. Survivors displaced out-of-state experienced higher morbidity rates than those not displaced. In the month following the disaster, mortality spiked, but during the remainder of the year returned to a level consistent with the previous year.”Researchers examined the managed care organization claims of 20,612 white and non-white residents of Orleans, Jefferson, St. Tammany and Plaquemines parishes who were over the age of 65 and enrolled in Peoples Health, a provider-owned managed care organization. Burton, along with colleagues from the Bloomberg School, Health Data Essentials, Inc. and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, conducted an observational study to compare mortality, morbidity and services used for one year before and after Hurricane Katrina. The researchers found that emergency department visits increased 100 percent in the month following Katrina, and by 21 percent over the next year compared to the pre-Katrina year. Hospitalization rates increased 66 percent in the first month after Katrina and maintained an increase of 23 percent over the ensuing year. Using a telephone survey, the study also examined the health of a random sample of enrollees after the hurricane. Researchers believe displacement played a major role in health outcomes. Sixty-nine percent reported moderate or severe damage to their home, or that their home was destroyed. At the end of the year, 28 percent reported their residence remained unlivable and another 28 percent reported a worse financial situation.“The enormous health burden experienced by older individuals and the disruptions in service utilization reveal the long-term effects of Hurricane Katrina on this vulnerable population,” said Jonathan Weiner, DrPH, senior author of the study and director of the Bloomberg School’s PhD Program in Health Services Research and Policy. “Although quick rebuilding of the provider network may have attenuated more severe health outcomes for this managed care population, new policies must be introduced to deal with the health consequences of a major disaster.”The research was funded by Peoples Health. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
January 22, 2009 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090121093422.htm | Coastal Barrier Island Researchers Learn Lessons From Ike Destruction | When more than 20 coastal barrier island researchers arrived on Galveston Island in early January, many had never seen the level of destruction wrought by Hurricane Ike. | They came from New England, the Pacific coast and all points between where ocean meets U.S. soil. From a common interest in coastal barrier islands and their multitude of questions that emerged from the rubble that still litters Galveston and neighboring Bolivar Peninsula has emerged a goal.The team, funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to develop a "research-management-outreach framework to sustain barrier island ecosystems," according to Dr. Rusty Feagin, ecosystems management scientist for Texas AgriLife Research and one of the conference organizers.Feagin is part of the Coastal Barrier Island Network project, a joint effort with Wake Forest University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology."Barrier islands do so many things and are of tremendous value," said Dr. William Smith, Wake Forest botanist and project leader. "And scientists today realize that the issues facing barrier islands are complex problems that have to be addressed by a multi-disciplinary team. There is no answer yet, but for the first time we are addressing it in this manner."After discussing data and touring the Hurricane Ike damage, the scientists agreed to these findings:The coastal barrier island scientists hope to research and find possible solutions to these issues. The project will span five years under the National Science Foundation grant.More information about the network can be found at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,009 |
December 24, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081210150116.htm | Green Homes That Withstand Hurricanes Under Development | Home foundations and frames built of a lightweight composite material that may bend - but won’t break - in a hurricane and can simply float on the rising tide of a storm’s coastal surge? Sounds too Sci-Fi? Maybe like something from the distant future? | Well, the technology is closer than you think. A professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is set for six months of overseas research aimed at making it a reality, now.UAB Associate Professor of Engineering Nasim Uddin, Ph.D., and his collaborators are behind the innovative work. Beginning Nov. 22, Uddin will spend six months in Bangladesh as a visiting lecturer and researcher at the BRAC University. Uddin will work to strengthen the university’s post graduate-program in disaster mitigation while he furthers his ongoing research into natural fiber-based composite technologies for low-cost residential coastal housing, engineered to withstand hurricane strength wind and storm surge damage. The trip is funded by a Fulbright Scholarship grant and is an extension of more than six years worth of UAB based research funded by more than $1 million in National Science Foundation grants.“Coastal people everywhere face serious threats, but imagine if we can build a home that would still be there after the storm,” Uddin said.While in Bangladesh, Uddin will work with local educators and researchers to study the feasibility, reliability and livability of low cost coastal housing designed to endure hurricanes using environmentally friendly composite building technology. The technology weaves fibers from the jute tree, one of Bangladesh’s most common and thriving plants, with plastics to form an ultra-strong building material. Uddin’s ongoing research with co-principal investigators Professors Uday Vaidya, Ph.D., and Fouad Fouad, Ph.D., has focused on a similar composite material, but one that relies on glass fibers rather than natural tree fibers.“The idea in Bangladesh is to find what we can do to design a more green material that is locally available at a substantially lower cost when compared to alternative building materials, and that is substantially stronger than the homes and structures currently being built along the coastline,” Uddin said. “We will learn if these jute fiber homes are livable, and we’ll try to resolve any architectural issues, getting a step closer to the real implementation or construction of such homes for people battered by centuries of deadly storms.”Uddin said the technology is light weight and also could help the structures survive hurricane storm surge and the resulting flooding, by essentially allowing the buildings to float on the rising tide once uplift pressures from climbing water levels force the structures free from their foundations.Uddin said that while this next phase of his fiber-composite research is taking place overseas, the technology, if it proves viable, will have tangible benefits for the coastal regions of United States, including parts of Alabama.“The potential payoff of this program could be the rapid insertion of the tree-fiber technology into the rebuilding and future construction of homes in the Gulf Coast states, especially in flood and storm prone areas like Mobile and New Orleans,” Uddin said.Uddin said that Bangladesh is the ideal country for his research. The Asian nation is one of the most disaster prone and densely populated in the world, offering a unique opportunity to better understand the potential real-world applications of the tree-fiber composite technology in construction. Also, he stressed that the BRAC University he will partner with is a part of one of the world’s largest non-governmental development organizations with the established network and infrastructure needed to implement the fiber-technology program at the grass roots level.“This is a poor country with an extremely poor coastal community that is completely devastated by these storms,” Uddin said. “A single storm can kill millions. So if our technology can be applied there successfully, you can see how many lives it could save in U.S. cities or anywhere else.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
December 19, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081212092054.htm | Weather Forecasting: Mathematical Model Illuminates Polar Lows | Scientists from the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht have developed a mathematical method that enables a reconstruction of the occurrence of small-scale polar storms - so-called polar lows - in the North Atlantic. This has made it possible to determine, for the first time, the frequency of such polar lows in the past. | Subsequent statistical analysis of data generated for the last 60 years revealed no direct correlation between global warming and the incidence of polar lows.Polar lows are small-scale storms that occur in the oceans of the high latitudes and are comparable to a tropical cyclone. The strong winds they produce are rightly feared by seamen. In the course of the last century, North Atlantic polar lows caused 56 shipwrecks with a total of 342 people lost at sea.Although polar lows do not always produce winds of hurricane force, they are particularly treacherous to shipping because they can develop very suddenly and, on account of their small diameter of only a few hundred kilometres, are very difficult to predict.Similarly, the lack of meteorological stations in the polar regions further compounds the difficulties of forecasting and documenting these weather systems.In order to determine whether the frequency of polar lows has increased in the North Atlantic in recent decades as a result of climate change, the environmental scientist Matthias Zahn and the climate researcher Hans von Storch from the GKSS Research Centre in Geesthacht examined global atmospheric data for the period from 1948 to 2006 in cooperation with the Meteorological Institute of the University of Hamburg.These data are available for areas of around 200 by 200 kilometres. “When you’re dealing with an essentially regional phenomenon such as a polar low, which often measures only a couple of hundred kilometres across, the resolution of global atmospheric data is too low to generate a precise analysis,” explains Matthias Zahn, who is currently working on his doctorate at the University of Hamburg.However, with the use of the so called “dynamical downscaling”, Zahn has been able to give these global atmospheric data the resolution required for their application to an area of around 50 by 50 kilometres. At the same time, he has developed a mathematical method that makes it possible to detect polar lows in this higher-resolution data.“Using this method, we were able to determine the frequency of polar lows during periods in the past, when satellite data was not as comprehensive as it is now. In the process, we discovered polar lows that don’t appear in previous meteorological records,” says Zahn.The subsequent statistical analysis showed that there is no long-term trend in the frequency of polar lows over the last 60 years and that at present there is no direct correlation to global warming.The mathematical method developed by Zahn will continue to be used to generate statistical information on variable high wind speeds within polar lows and on this basis to develop scenarios elucidating the occurrence of such storms. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
December 17, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216201408.htm | United States Death Map Revealed | A map of natural hazard mortality in the United States has been produced. The map gives a county-level representation of the likelihood of dying as the result of natural events such as floods, earthquakes or extreme weather. | Susan Cutter and Kevin Borden, from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, used nationwide data going back to 1970 to create their map. According to Cutter, "This work will enable research and emergency management practitioners to examine hazard deaths through a geographic lens. Using this as a tool to identify areas with higher than average hazard deaths can justify allocation of resources to these areas with the goal of reducing loss of life".Hazard mortality is most prominent in the South, where most people were killed by various severe weather hazards and tornadoes. Other areas of elevated risk are the northern Great Plains Region where heat and drought were the biggest killers and in the mountain west with winter weather and flooding deaths. The south central US is also a dangerous area, with floods and tornadoes posing the greatest threat.Heat/drought ranked highest among the hazard categories, causing 19.6% of total deaths, closely followed by severe summer weather (18.8%) and winter weather (18.1%). Geophysical events (such as earthquakes), wildfires, and hurricanes were responsible for less than 5% of total hazard deaths combined. Cutter said, "What is noteworthy here is that over time, highly destructive, highly publicized, often catastrophic singular events such as hurricanes and earthquakes are responsible for relatively few deaths when compared to the more frequent, less catastrophic events such as heat waves and severe weather (summer or winter)".The authors conclude, "The spatial patterns revealed in our results may be unsurprising – greater risk of death along the hurricane coasts, in the interior west, and in the South – all areas prone to natural hazards as well as significant population growth and expansion throughout the study period. However, using this analysis as a blueprint for hazard mortality 'hot spots' supports justification for a more in-depth study of hazard- induced deaths in specific regions or communities. It is at this local scale where defining the deadliest hazard becomes important and emergency management officials can take action to try to reduce the number of future deaths". | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
December 15, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081208114331.htm | Dune And Dirty: Hurricane Teaches Lessons Through Ecosystem Research | Dr. Rusty Feagin was managing several ecosystem research projects on Galveston Island when the 2008 hurricane season began. Then he got an unexpected visit from a research assistant named Ike. | “Ike reconfirmed the basic idea I’ve had for several years,” said Feagin, ecosystem scientist with Texas AgriLife Research. “The plants on sand dunes and in marshes build an island’s elevation, so we shouldn’t compromise that.”Most of the dunes and marshes he and his graduate students had studied were destroyed or severely damaged by Hurricane Ike, which struck Galveston Sept. 13.But with the 2008 hurricane season officially over, Feagin has noted the changes and will begin again.His research over the years, however, has yielded discoveries that could help the tender ecosystem recover, depending on human interaction. Among his findings, when comparing before and after Ike, is that the marshes lost elevation, which is contrary to what most would expect to happen in a hurricane.Damage to Texas’s barrier islands stroke a variety of long-debated issues. According to the state's General Land Office, Texas is the only state in the nation that has an Open Beaches Act. That means the public has “ free and unrestricted access to and use of the beach” or the area between the dunes and the “state-owned submerged lands,” the land office indicates.The state’s coastline is more than 365 miles long. The width is measured from the vegetation line on the land to more than 10 miles into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the land office, which estimates a $7-billion-a-year tourism economy from the area.Thus, tension brews around mending hurricane-slashed coastal ecosystems from the standpoint of people who choose to live nearby and those who want to enjoy the state’s property.Feagin, who admits a passion for coastal ecosystems, said four elements are impacted as a hurricane rolls over a barrier island: beaches erode, sand dunes “blow out,” houses and buildings are damaged and, finally, the marshes receive sediment deposits from all the above.“With beaches, sand from the beach is washed out into the sea, and it usually comes back in the natural wave cycles over time,” he said. “But along the Texas coast, our sand doesn’t come back very well. That’s because it is very silty and so is carried farther away in the Gulf.” He said the state’s coastline also has a lot of development and engineered structures such as jetties which are meant to stabilize the land but instead interrupt the natural sedimentary process.“The coast is one of the most dynamic ecosystems there is, and it can totally change in a hurricane,” Feagin said.In some areas, he said, there was only a thin sand veneer on top of clay. With that sand now gone, all of the invertebrate animals are gone because they are not able to live in the clay.That will impact other animals in the food chain, such as birds that previously fed on the small creatures.Further inland come the sand dunes.“The dunes are a little higher than the beach and some do OK,” he said. “But basically water is forced through existing holes in dunes causing them blow out. Our dunes have problems because of over development, so that could make it difficult for sand dunes to re-establish.”Feagin said the sand dunes in the area hit by Hurricane Ike were already eroding at a rate of several feet per year. The natural mending of washed-out beaches might not be possible because of the many structures and non-native landscapes maintained there, blocking dune re-establishment.He explained that sand dunes need plants to accumulate sand from passing winds. Many of these plants are actually stimulated to grow as they become buried by sand, resulting in the deposit of another layer of sand until a larger, land-sustaining dune is "born." But if a lawn is maintained where a dune used to be, the layers will never be allowed to rebuild and thus no dune will exist to provide some measure of protection in the future.“Dunes can protect buildings to some degree in the smaller storms that are more common in the area,” Feagin said. “Plus the location of vegetation and dunes in Texas is where many legal battles play out for public versus private property issues.“We care about dunes because we want our public beaches,” he added. “And if a private house has been built and there is now no dune in front of it, then that house is now on our public land and may block our access to this extremely valuable tourism resource. “Beyond these legal issues, he added, the dunes also support animals such as Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, which are endangered.The sea turtles' nesting season in Texas runs from April through mid-July but nesting peaks during May and June. Females typically nest at the base of dunes or within the dune complex, according to Dr. André Landry, AgriLife Research marine ecologist and director of the Sea Turtle and Fisheries Ecology Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University at Galveston.One of Feagin’s dune projects - planting of sea oats at Galveston State Park - was totally decimated by Ike. Sea oats, which used to be prevalent on the island, had been eliminated first from overstocking of cattle decades ago and then from building and infrastructure construction, said Feagin.In the next element of the island, certainly many homes and buildings were damaged, and plants there look “toasted” by salt water, he said.But the final section – the salt marshes – had measurable damage, as Feagin’s ecosystem research shows.“A salt marsh is normally a fairly nice protected area that benefits from a hurricane because all that sediment gets blown out from the beach, dunes and upland is deposited in the marsh,” Feagin said. “But our research on the backside of Galveston where the surge was around 12 feet shows it lost elevation. The marshes need to maintain a fairly shallow water depth to support their unique ecosystem. And sea levels have been rising, so sediment is needed to maintain the depth."The sediment accumulation didn’t happen. In fact, at our research site, elevation dropped at about same rate as under everyday conditions.”Feagin believes this could be because all the development between Gulf side and marsh side kept the sediment from arriving.“There was not any sediment addition in the salt marsh, which is not good,” he said, noting that a lack of rain since Ike and the influx of a higher concentration of salt water means that many of the marshes are parched. “Marshes are among the most productive ecosystems in the world. They are full of organic materials, detritus algae and plants. Gulf crab, shrimp, and commercial fish all have some portion of their life in marshes. So if we lose marshes, we lose fisheries.“Bird watching and hunting are also huge economically,” he noted, “and marshes also filter runoff from the mainland to provide cleaner water to the bays.”Feagin said the marshes also play a role in building new land because the plants slow down rising tide water, causing suspended sediment to settle, resulting in layers of land over time."Prior to Ike, we tested this near Galveston by killing the marsh plants in one area to compare surface elevation change with a nearby marsh where we left the plants alone,” he said. “We found that the plants did help build land elevation prior to the hurricane.”However, when studying post-Ike surface erosion at the site, Feagin said, “we found the plants did not prevent sediment erosion by waves during Ike and in fact enhanced erosion because their roots wiggled, stirring up sediment to be washed out to sea.“Some would say that plants directly protect the land and thus protect people from storms,” Feagin said. “But that’s not so in terms of the big storms. But the waves are not what does the damage and cause death, it’s the water depth. If you get a 12-foot wall of water, it doesn’t matter if you have a front yard full of oak trees.“We need to rely on ‘ecological engineering’ and good policy that requires people to build homes in the correct locations,” he said. “If we covered a barrier island such as Galveston with concrete, you could say it was stabilized. But without the natural process of building elevation through by plants, the whole thing will eventually drown from the rising sea level.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
December 11, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081211161741.htm | State Political Corruption Linked To Receiving U.S. FEMA Money, Study Finds | Where natural disasters strike, political corruption is soon to follow, say the authors of a study in the Journal of Law and Economics. But it's not the wind and rain that turns good folks bad; it's the money that floods in afterwards from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. | "We find each $100 of FEMA-provided disaster relief increases the average state's corruption by nearly 102 percent," write Peter Leeson (George Mason) and Russell Sobel (West Virginia U.). "Our findings suggest that notoriously corrupt regions of the United States, such as the Gulf Coast, are in part notoriously corrupt because natural disasters frequently strike them. They attract more disaster relief, which makes them more corrupt."Leeson and Sobel base their conclusions on a statistical model that measured the relationship between FEMA allocations and corruption in each U.S. state. The researchers quantified corruption as the number of per capita convictions of public officials for crimes such as embezzlement, accepting bribes or kickbacks, extortion and unlawful dealings with private vendors or contractors.Hurricane-prone states like Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana, which receive large amounts of FEMA money, tend to have more corruption convictions per capita. States like Nebraska and Colorado, which receive almost no FEMA dollars, have least corruption.Leeson and Sobel also found notable spikes in corruption convictions in the year following influxes of FEMA money in a given area. For example, in 1997 Minnesota received around $300 million from FEMA after the Red River Flood. In 1998, corruption convictions in Minnesota spiked to 14 per 100,000 citizens from less than two per 100,000 the year before.The data used in the study were from 1990 to 1999, so the Katrina and Rita disasters of 2005 are not included. But Leeson and Sobel say the preliminary numbers indicate the aftermath of those disasters appears consistent with their finding. Federal prosecutors have thus far charged 700 individuals with crimes related to the nearly $33 billion FEMA allocated to deal with the disasters, they say. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
December 5, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081205171003.htm | NRL's P-3 Aircraft Support Project To Study Tropical Cyclones | The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been hunting for tropical cyclones as part of a multi-national study to understand, observe, and predict the potential impacts of Pacific tropical cyclones. This project, called Tropical Cyclone Struture-2008, is part of a nine-nation project being carried out with the endorsement of the World Meteorological Organization, a part of the United Nations. | The main goal of Tropical Cyclone Structure-2008 is to increase the predictability of tropical cyclones in the western North Pacific region.To carry out the study, one of NRL's NP-3 aircraft and two Air Force Reserve WC-130J aircraft deployed to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, to conduct meteorological research on tropical cyclones in the Western Pacific from August through September. During the project, P-3 aircrews from Scientific Development Squadron ONE (VXS-1), the "Warlocks", Patuxent River, MD, and WC-130 aircrews from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron "Hurricane Hunters," Keesler Air Force Base, MS, worked with scientists from several universities and research organizations sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Patrick Harr, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, is the lead scientist for the program.More than ten countries including scientists in the region from Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan supported Tropical Cyclone Structure-2008, along with global partners such as Canada and the European Union because typhoons in the Pacific actually affect the ability to predict the weather across the entire Northern Hemisphere.The team of scientists used the NP-3 and WC-130 aircraft because of their unique capabilities. NRL's specialized, modified P-3 aircraft is capable of studying the outer part of the typhoon, focusing on the how and why of its changes in structure and intensity, while the Air Force WC-130 aircraft are capable of studying the inner core of the typhoon and penetrating the eyewall.The NRL NP-3, flying from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, collected data using dropsondes, a unique Doppler wind lidar developed under Navy sponsorship, and the ELDORA radar, all of which were used to map the structure of the storm. The Air Force's WC-130s were fitted with a variety of equipment used for weather research. During flight, the aircraft measured numerous parameters including wind speed, wind direction, humidity, and temperature.One of the critical pieces of equipment on board the WC-130 aircraft is the dropsonde system. The GPS dropsonde system is equipped with a high frequency radio to pass measured conditions back to the aircraft and is released from flight level on a parachute about every 100 miles over water. With its dropsonde deployments, on-board sensors, and the Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer, the WC-130 provided observations of the typhoon intensity and inner wind structure from the formation stage to the extra-tropical transition stage. As the dropsonde descends to the sea surface, it measures and relays to the aircraft a vertical atmospheric profile of the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure and wind data.The researchers' goal is to learn more about how tropical cyclones form, intensify, and change through their life cycle and the impact they may later have across the North Pacific and Asia, North America and potentially Europe. The data collected during Tropical Cyclone Structure-2008 will validate the satellite-based techniques for intensity estimation in the Pacific. Prior to this time, this data had only been validated in the Atlantic where the WC-130s regularly fly such missions.In addition to NRL's NP-3 and the Air Force's WC-130 aircraft, the DOTSTAR, a Taiwanese Astra business class jet, flew out of Taiwan and a Dassault Falcon 20E, another research-modified business class jet from DLR in Germany, flew from the U.S. Naval Air Facility Atsugi, Japan. Both aircraft deploy dropsondes and carry other equipment for meteorological studies.Along with the aircraft, scientists working from Hawaii launched high-altitude driftsondes. Driftsondes are zero-pressure balloons that go up to 80,000 feet. These balloons have a gondola that has small dropsondes the scientists release remotely by satellite. Tropical Cyclone Struture-2008 is the first research program to observe tropical cyclones from their formation near Guam to their transition into the midlatitudes near Japan. The scientists are hopeful that the data gathered during Tropical Cyclone Structure-2008 will help in understanding and predicting similar events in the Pacific and the Atlantic. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
November 30, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081129124902.htm | 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Sets Records | The 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season officially comes to a close on November 30, marking the end of a season that produced a record number of consecutive storms to strike the United States and ranks as one of the more active seasons in the 64 years since comprehensive records began. | A total of 16 named storms formed this season, based on an operational estimate by NOAA's National Hurricane Center. The storms included eight hurricanes, five of which were major hurricanes at Category 3 strength or higher. These numbers fall within the ranges predicted in NOAA’s pre- and mid-season outlooks issued in May and August. The August outlook called for 14 to 18 named storms, seven to 10 hurricanes and three to six major hurricanes. An average season has 11 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.“This year’s hurricane season continues the current active hurricane era and is the tenth season to produce above-normal activity in the past 14 years,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.Overall, the season is tied as the fourth most active in terms of named storms (16) and major hurricanes (five), and is tied as the fifth most active in terms of hurricanes (eight) since 1944, which was the first year aircraft missions flew into tropical storms and hurricanes.For the first time on record, six consecutive tropical cyclones (Dolly, Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike) made landfall on the U.S. mainland and a record three major hurricanes (Gustav, Ike and Paloma) struck Cuba. This is also the first Atlantic season to have a major hurricane (Category 3) form in five consecutive months (July: Bertha, August: Gustav, September: Ike, October: Omar, November: Paloma).Bell attributes this year’s above-normal season to conditions that include:NOAA's National Hurricane Center is conducting comprehensive post-event assessments of each named storm of the season. Some of the early noteworthy findings include:Much of the storm-specific information is based on operational estimates and some changes could be made during the review process that is underway. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
November 24, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081121162107.htm | Second Warmest October For Global Temperatures, NOAA Says | The combined global land and ocean surface average temperature for October 2008 was the second warmest since records began in 1880, according to a preliminary analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. | null | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
November 14, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031112041.htm | Satellites Helping Aid Workers In Honduras | Humanitarian aid workers responding to devastating flooding in Honduras have received assistance from space, with satellite images of affected areas provided rapidly following activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters. | Tens of thousands of people have been displaced and 33 lives have been claimed by floods and landslides brought on by a tropical depression that hit the Central American country on 16 October.On 27 October, the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Operational Satellite Applications Programme (UNOSAT) asked the International Charter on 'Space and Major Disasters', referred to as 'The Charter', for support. Satellite images of the area acquired by ESA’s Envisat were delivered the same day.The Charter, founded in October 2000 by ESA, the French Space Agency (CNES) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), works to provide satellite data free of charge to those affected by disasters anywhere in the world.With inundated areas typically visible from space, Earth Observation (EO) is increasingly being used for flood response and mitigation. One of the biggest problems during flooding emergencies is obtaining an overall view of the phenomenon, with a clear idea of the extent of the flooded area. The crisis image of the Cortes Department, one of the hardest hit areas, is comprised of two Envisat radar images – one acquired on 25 October and one on 20 September that was used as a reference. The blue and red colours indicate areas that are potentially flooded.The flooding is being compared to the devastation left by Hurricane Mitch, which killed about 6 000 people when it ripped through Honduras a decade ago. Overall, Mitch claimed more than 10 000 lives across Central America.In the wake of Hurricane Mitch, ESA, CNES and Spot Image worked to provide rapid and accurate EO-based maps of the area to emergency response teams. The reaction by the space community to the impact of Mitch is considered a precursor to the Charter.Today, the Charter has 10 members, including ESA, CNES, CSA, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Argentine Space Agency (CONAE), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the British National Space Centre/Disaster Monitoring Constellation (BNSC/DMC), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the China National Space Administration (CNSA). | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
November 5, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081030144724.htm | Hurricane Ike Caused Underwater Damage To Galveston | Conducting a rapid response research mission after Hurricane Ike, scientists at The University of Texas at Austin surveyed the inlet between Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, discovering the hurricane significantly reshaped the seafloor and likely carried an enormous amount of sand and sediment out into the Gulf. | The ongoing research could help coastal communities gauge the effectiveness of their sometimes controversial efforts to replenish eroding sand along shorelines while revealing the role storms play in building and eroding barrier islands such as Galveston.“The big question is whether the sand was entirely removed from the system or if it’s still close enough to the shoreline to get back into the system,” said John Goff, survey team member and senior research scientist at the university’s Jackson School of Geosciences.Goff and Mead Allison, another research scientist at the Jackson School, used the 60-foot research vessel R/V Acadiana to conduct a seafloor survey of the Bolivar Roads inlet just a week and a half after Hurricane Ike made landfall on the Texas coast. The inlet is the main passage between the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston Bay and is the route of the Houston Ship Channel as it passes between Galveston Island to the west and the Bolivar Peninsula to the east. The team used sonar to map the depth of the seafloor and seismic instruments to measure the thickness of sediments.The researchers knew the area well having led a group of university students on a marine geology and geophysics field class to Galveston this summer, collecting the most recent pre-Ike seafloor mapping and sample data from Bolivar Roads.“The timing of our previous study was fortuitous,” said Goff, “adding to the practical and public benefit of our post-Ike data.”Hurricane Ike’s surge last Sept. 13 filled Galveston Bay with 12 feet of water, which subsequently drained back into the ocean as a “back surge.” Although considerable amounts of water flowed over the Bolivar Peninsula and other lower-lying portions of the barrier system, most of the surge and back surge likely passed through Bolivar Roads, by far the deepest access between the Gulf and the Bay. The very high rate of flow that must have passed through the inlet had the potential to cause substantial erosion and transport sediment long distances.Comparing pre- and post-Ike surveys, the scientists determined the hurricane’s surge and back surge significantly modified the seabed over broad areas. Ike either erased or substantially degraded large shell-gravel ridges up to 10 feet high. The storm gouged out sediments deposited hundreds of thousands of years ago to create “erosional pits” up to five feet deep in one area. It appears to have mobilized and redeposited sediments over large regions in a layer eight to 40 inches thick, and in isolated spots up to 6.5 feet thick. Most of the movement of sediments is associated with the back surge.In conducting their post-Ike survey, the scientists are primarily interested in investigating the impact of the storm surges on the movement of sediment into and out of the beach barrier system. Maintenance of a barrier system requires an influx of sand, provided naturally by rivers such as the Mississippi. Human modifications to rivers by dams or levees disrupt the delivery of sand to the shore, which can cause the barrier system to degrade.Until now, the transport of sediments during large storms was a poorly known quantity. Surges could potentially boost the barrier island sand budget by delivering sediments to the shore face, or they could subtract from it by moving sand too far off shore to be incorporated into the barrier system. The pre- and post-Ike survey work will also identify any storm-affected changes to the inlet channel that could affect navigation.Weather permitting, the team will conduct an additional survey Nov. 6-8 offshore of Bolivar Roads to identify the extent of storm-related deposition, and offshore of the Bolivar Peninsula, where aerial and satellite photos suggest significant amounts of surface erosion during the back surge and consequential deposition off shore. Jackson School researcher Sean Gulick will also participate in this extended effort.Funding for the survey was provided by the Jackson School’s Rapid Response Program, which funds field research requiring immediate action, in advance of the months it often takes to receive federal or non-profit grant money. Such projects include research into the effects of natural disasters like sinkholes, hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
November 2, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081031141526.htm | Recent Hurricane History Provides Diverging Interpretations On Future Of Hurricane Activity | In a paper published in the journal Science, scientists Gabriel A. Vecchi of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Kyle L. Swanson of the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Atmospheric Sciences Group and Brian J. Soden from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science teamed up to study hurricane data observed over more than 50 years. | The study explores the relationship between sea surface temperature (SST) and seasonal hurricane activity, and show how differing interpretations of the observational record can imply vastly different futures for Atlantic hurricane activity due to global warming. The two interpretations arise from assumptions of whether it is the local SST in the Atlantic in isolation, or whether it is the SST in the Atlantic 'relative' to the rest of the tropics, that drives variations in Atlantic hurricane activity.If one assumes the former (the local SST hypothesis), then by 2100, the lower bound on Atlantic hurricane activity is comparable to that of 2005, when four major hurricanes struck the continental United States, causing more than $100 billion in damage. The upper bound exceeds 2005 levels by more than a factor of two. However, if one assumes the latter (the relative SST hypothesis), then the future is similar to the recent past, with periods of higher and lower hurricane activity relative to present-day conditions due to natural climate variability, but with little long-term trend.The statistical relationship between either interpretation of the SST/hurricane activity link is ambiguous over the period 1946-2007 (they are statistically indistinguishable, though both are significant), but they imply fundamentally different projections for the future and interpretations of the past. The team further argues that the consistency between theory, numerical models, and historical observations offers compelling evidence that the 'relative' SST hypothesis is more accurate and provides a better framework for projections of future changes in hurricane activity. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
October 17, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081006112101.htm | Portable Imaging System Will Help Maximize Public Health Response To Natural Disasters | Researchers at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) have developed a low-cost, high-resolution imaging system that can be attached to a helicopter to create a complete and detailed picture of an area devastated by a hurricane or other natural disaster. The resulting visual information can be used to estimate the number of storm refugees and assess the need for health and humanitarian services. | Aid organizations currently don't have a quick and accurate way to determine how many people need assistance. Satellites can collect images of areas affected by a natural disaster, but there are dissemination restrictions and cloud cover can prevent collection of images."Without a real-time map, it's very hard to do population estimates and demographic estimates to figure out where people are, how they're moving, how they're spaced out and even how many people you have on the ground," said Benjamin Sklaver, a project officer from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch. "This technology does not exist currently, so GTRI's imaging system is really an innovative project."The imaging system was developed with funding from the CDC, and agency officials would like to begin using this device as soon as possible. After responding to the recent devastation caused by Hurricanes Hanna and Ike, the CDC asked GTRI to accelerate delivery of the imaging device for use during the 2008 hurricane season."We plan to package the system for use on Coast Guard UH-60J Black Hawk helicopters, which were among the first to fly over Haiti following Hanna's devastation," said David Price, a GTRI senior research technologist.The imaging system – designed by Price and senior research engineer Gary Gray – is called the "Mini ModPOD," which stands for "Miniature Modular Photographic Observation Device." It consists of an off-the-shelf Canon Digital Rebel XTi digital camera, a global positioning system receiver, a small circuit board that uploads mission parameters, and an inertial measurement unit that measures the aircraft's rate of acceleration and changes in rotational attributes, including pitch, roll and yaw. The images collected from the system can be stitched together to create a complete picture of the affected area.The research team has tested the device on several flights, selecting areas with large populations of people likely to be outdoors."During the first test flight, we wanted to test the clarity and resolution of the images collected during the run, and we were very pleased," said Price. "We could see tennis balls on the ground and people reading books at outdoor tables. This was sufficient detail to allow accurate counting the number of people in an area."After the first flight, the researchers reduced the weight of the device and developed a more accurate geo-referencing capability, which allowed the physical location of the scenes shown in each photograph to be determined with precision. With the modifications made, the researchers went for a second flight test in July.The research group selected a rectangular zone of interest and loaded the latitude and longitude coordinates of the zone into the system from a USB drive. As soon as the helicopter flew into the zone, the camera began snapping pictures. The electronics were set to measure the speed of the aircraft so that each photo overlapped 60 percent of the preceding photo, making it easier to stitch together the photos to create a complete picture. The pilot made two passes, at altitudes of 500 and 1,000 feet above ground level."This test flight was successful in confirming the Mini ModPOD's ability to activate the camera within the zone of interest. The resulting photos were extremely sharp and clear – they were free of any vibration or motion effects," added Price.The photos were successfully matched to the flight data, which enabled the CDC to adjust them for geospatial reference. However, due to a software glitch, they were not overlapped as planned. The researchers made a small adjustment to the software and completed a third a third test flight in August."This flight resulted in images that were 60 percent overlapped, enabling CDC engineers to build a high-resolution mosaic image," noted Price. "Individuals on the ground were easily distinguishable as people separate from other objects."The imaging system will also be available to the CDC and other agencies, such as the American Red Cross, to count people in refugee camps in order to plan for health and humanitarian services. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
October 15, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081014134102.htm | Did Termites Help Katrina Destroy New Orleans Floodwalls And Levees? | Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, people still speculate over causes of the destruction of the city’s floodwall system. A new article in the fall issue of American Entomologist (Vol. 54, No. 3) suggests that Formosan subterranean termites played a large role. | Author Gregg Henderson, a professor at the Louisiana State University AgCenter, discovered Formosan subterranean termites (Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki) in the floodwall seams in August, 2000 – five years before Katrina struck – and noticed that the seams were made of waste residue from processed sugarcane. Known as bagasse, this waste residue is attractive to Formosan termites.After the dikes were breached in 2005, Henderson and his colleague Alan Morgan inspected 100 seams for evidence of termites, including three areas where major breaks in the walls had occurred. 70% of the seams in the London Avenue Canal, which experienced two major breaks during Katrina, showed evidence of insect attack, as did 27% of seams inspected in the walls of the 17th Street Canal.The Formosan subterranean termite originates from China, where it has been known to damage levees since the 1950s. Besides eating at bagasse seams, the termites may have contributed to the destruction of the levees of New Orleans by digging networks of tunnels, which can cause “piping,” sending water through the tunnels and undermining the levee system.“I believe that the termites pose a continuing danger that requires immediate attention,” Henderson writes. “The fact that termites cause piping in levees must be accepted.”The author further suggests that New Orleans’ 350 miles of levees and floodwalls should be surveyed for termite damage, and that treatment of the floodwalls and nearby trees may be necessary to avoid future disasters. Henderson will demonstrate one survey method using ground-penetrating radar at the ESA Annual Meeting in Reno, Nevada, November 16-19. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
October 12, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081008150459.htm | Future Risk Of Hurricanes: The Role Of Climate Change | Researchers are homing in on the hurricane-prone Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea to assess the likely changes, between now and the middle of the century, in the frequency, intensity, and tracks of these powerful storms. Initial results are expected early next year. | The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., working with federal agencies as well as the insurance and energy industries, has launched an intensive study to examine how global warming will influence hurricanes in the next few decades.The goal of the project is to provide information to coastal communities, offshore drilling operations, and other interests that could be affected by changes in hurricanes."This science builds on years of previous investment," said Cliff Jacobs, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which is funding the project. "The outcome of this research will shed light on the relationship between global warming and hurricanes, and will better inform decisions by government and industry."The project relies on an innovative combination of global climate and regional weather models, run on one of the world's most powerful supercomputers."It's clear from the impacts of recent hurricane activity that we urgently need to learn more about how hurricane intensity and behavior may respond to a warming climate," says NCAR scientist Greg Holland, who is leading the project. "The increasingly dense development along our coastlines and our dependence on oil from the Gulf of Mexico leaves our society dangerously vulnerable to hurricanes."The new study follows two major reports, by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that found evidence for a link between global warming and increased hurricane activity.But many questions remain about future hurricane activity. For example, the CCSP report concluded that future changes in frequency were uncertain, and that rainfall and intensity were likely to increase, but with unknown consequences.Improved understanding of climate change and hurricanes is an especially high priority for the energy industry, which has a concentration of drilling platforms, refineries, pipelines and other infrastructure in the region that are vulnerable to severe weather.Hurricanes Gustav and Ike damaged offshore oil production and several refineries, disrupting gasoline supplies.The project is part of a larger effort examining regional climate change between 1995 and 2055.The simulations are being run on NCAR's bluefire supercomputer with support from NSF, NCAR's sponsor, and through a long-term collaboration with the insurance industry through the Willis Research Network."This research program by NCAR is a major contribution to the insurance industry and public policy makers," says Rowan Douglas, managing director of Willis."The primary way to improve our understanding of present and future hurricane risk is to generate computer simulations of storms in unprecedented detail."For the project, the model will examine three decades in detail: 1995-2005, 2020-2030, and 2045-2055. Scientists will use statistical techniques to fill in the gaps between these decades.A major goal is to examine how several decades of greenhouse-gas buildup could affect regional climate and, in turn, influence hurricanes and other critical weather features. Scientists will also investigate the impact of the powerful storms on global climate.One of the most difficult technical challenges for such a project is to create a model that can capture both the climate of the entire world and the behavior of a single hurricane.To get around this roadblock, NCAR has developed an approach called Nested Regional Climate Modeling (NRCM). The center "nests" a special version of its high-resolution weather model (the Weather Research and Forecasting model, or WRF) inside its lower-resolution, global climate model (the Community Climate System Model, or CCSM).The resulting simulations show fine-scale detail for certain regions, like the Gulf of Mexico, while also incorporating global climate patterns.For each of its decade-long time slices, the NRCM's resolution will be about 20 miles across Africa, Europe, and the South Atlantic, 7.5 miles across the tropical Atlantic and northeastern United States, and an even sharper 2.5 miles over the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, southeastern United States, and drought-prone western United States."Combining weather and climate models in this way enables more detailed projections of hurricanes in a warming world than any study to date," says Holland. "These projections will help reduce the uncertainty of current assessments, and they also serve the very important role of providing experience about applying future predictions of changes to high impact weather systems in general." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
October 1, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080925144812.htm | Dominican Republic's Early Warning System For Hurricanes And Flooding Strengthened | Stevens Institute of Technology's Center for Maritime Systems began a project to strengthen the Early Warning System (EWS) for Inundations in the Dominican Republic. The project is focused on developing the technology of DR's EWS and providing the most up-to-date equipment to improve accuracy in detection of hurricanes and prevent flooding on the island. | The genesis of the EWS effort began in 2007 when Dr. Harold J. Raveche, President of Stevens, was attending a meeting in the DR during which the topic of vast hurricane devastation came up. Dr. Raveche offered his help and asked Dr. Alan Blumberg, Director of Stevens' Center for Maritime Systems, and Dr. Thomas O. Herrington, also of the Center, to see how Stevens could offer assistance. They began collaborative efforts with Janet Kunhardt at Stevens Institute of Technology International (SITI), and together they established important relationships with leaders and engineers in the DR to establish the program.Blumberg received more assistance for promoting the EWS project when Eileen Parra, a Stevens Civil Engineering student and a native of the DR, joined the team. Parra moved to the US from the DR when she was six-years old. She always had a love for math and her uncle, a civil engineer in the DR, inspired her to study civil engineering. During the summer of 2007, her uncle gave her an opportunity for hands-on experience doing management work for the construction of Aurora del Sol Hotel in Santo Domingo, DR.Since moving to the US, Parra has returned to visit her country every summer and always looked for ways to give back. She feels that working with the EWS is the opportunity she's been waiting for. After familiarizing herself with the EWS project goals, she submitted a proposal to Stevens' Technogenesis program to further the work in the DR. The proposal was accepted and Parra traveled to the DR to continue project development from June through August 2008."Hurricanes have always been a concern in the DR," explained Parra, "but since the hurricanes in October and November of 2007, which took place during hurricane off-season, DR wanted to improve the method of monitoring hurricanes at all times." Stevens' assistance with improved technology and equipment will increase DR's ability to detect hurricanes on time, even during hurricane off-season and all year long. As accuracy in detecting hurricanes improves, so will the efficiency of transmitting the message to DR natives who live in both urban and rural areas. As a result, there will be increased prevention against hurricanes and flooding for the whole island.Creating a more technological EWS will also increase employment opportunities in the DR and provide greater educational opportunities for engineers who will be involved with the EWS. Stevens plans to train Dominican engineers in the modeling and rehabilitation of the improved EWS and work jointly with them during the installation process. A mirror site to DR's EWS, which will be located at Stevens' Davidson Laboratory, will help oversee the work being done and serve as a back-up EWS if the DR's system gets destroyed in a disaster."The people in the DR are very anxious and enthusiastic about this project and are impressed by what we can offer," said Parra, "They believe it's possible and they want to start right away. They are also very honest and open to receiving help."A proposal for technical advancement funding for the program was recently submitted by Stevens to the United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) and a proposal will soon be submitted to USAID. "If this program is successful in the DR, it can be taken to other Caribbean countries," said Blumberg.Five years from now, Parra hopes to see the new EWS in the DR up and running. She predicts it will take about one year to receive funding for the project, two years for installation of the software and equipment and a few more years to achieve a good record of storm prediction. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
October 1, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924111015.htm | Global Warming Will Have Significant Economic Impacts On Florida Coasts, Reports State | Leading Florida-based scientific researchers released two new studies today, including a Florida State University report finding that climate change will cause significant impacts on Florida's coastlines and economy due to increased sea level rise. | A second study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University recommends that the state of Florida adopt a series of policy programs aimed at adapting to these large coastal and other impacts as a result of climate change. Key findings of the FAU report were included just this week by Florida Gov. Charlie Crist's Climate and Energy Action Team when it adopted the "Adaptation" section of its final report."The impacts of climate change on Florida's coasts and on our economy will be substantial, persistent and long-term, even under our conservative estimates," said Julie Harrington, director of the Center for Economic Forecasting and Analysis at FSU. "Should, as many models predict, sea level rise, and hurricane strength and other factors become more extreme, much greater economic impacts will occur along many parts of Florida's coast in this century."The second new study, by researchers at FAU, focused on state adaptation policies needed as Florida faces the impacts of climate change."The goal of our study is to help the state of Florida adapt, in the most effective way possible, to climate change impacts that are now inevitable," said Jim Murley, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions and leader of the study. "These approaches must be comprehensive and strategic, not piecemeal and episodic. Governor Crist and other leaders have rightly identified adapting to climate change as one of the state's greatest challenges -- we look forward to working with the state to protect our people, natural splendor, and economic livelihood. There is real work to be done."This research was supported by a grant from the National Commission on Energy Policy, a project of the Bipartisan Policy Center.This study uses current estimates of sea level rise from Florida State University's Beaches and Shores Resource Center and 2001 estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the effect of sea level rise on the six coastal counties. The results show projected trends in storm-surge flood return periods associated with hurricanes, damage costs associated with flooding from major storm events, and the value and area of land at risk.Under the FSU study's estimates for sea level in Dade County, the value of land at risk totals $6.7 billion in 2080 (in 2005 dollars). (By comparison, using International Panel on Climate Change sea level estimates, the value of land at risk in Dade County ranges from $1 billion to $12.3 billion in 2080). The study also calculated the effect of storm surge and sea level rise on future damage costs, finding that if a storm like Hurricane Wilma from 2005 occurred in 2080, the cost to Dade alone would be from 12 percent to 31 percent higher (in 2005 constant dollars). While these findings do not account for adaptive strategies or potential future increases in property values, they still provide valuable information about potential impacts and resources that are put at risk from sea level rise.Key findings of the report have been included by Gov. Crist's Climate and Energy Action Team as it adopted the "Adaptation" section of its final report this week in Tallahassee. Important findings from the FAU study call for major state environmental, growth management and public infrastructure decision-making processes to be adjusted so they are responsive to future climate change impacts."FAU will continue to research how Florida can be a leader in providing guidance to other states on how best to put in place workable solutions that will help communities adapt to future climate change impacts," Murley said."Storm events associated with certain levels of storm surge could increase in frequency in the future, due to sea level rise," Harrington said."As sea level rises, damage costs associated with extreme storm events increases significantly for the Florida counties examined in this study," she said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 30, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924190637.htm | Wetlands Restoration Not A Panacea For Louisiana Coast | Counting on wetlands restoration projects to protect storm buffeted infrastructure along the Louisiana Coast is likely to be a “losing battle” that provides “false hope” and prevents endangered communities from clearly planning for their future, says a researcher from Western Carolina University (WCU). | As hurricanes have pounded the Gulf of Mexico this fall, the media has been filled with the words of politicians, policy makers, NGOs and local communities touting the importance of ongoing wetlands restoration projects as long-term storm protection for coastal communities and infrastructure. Unfortunately, there’s little science to support this growing belief.“I think that’s a potentially dangerous message” said Robert Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at WCU. “While I think that wetland restoration is a worthy goal, there’s almost no scientific evidence that suggests that we will be able to put the wetlands back on the scale and nature needed to reduce storm impacts.”Young is scheduled to present recommendations from a recent white paper, co-authored by 26 leading coastal scientists and engineers, on Tuesday, 7 October, at the 2008 Joint Meeting of the Geological Society of America (GSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), and Gulf Coast Association of Geological Societies, this week in Houston, Texas, USA.*As a hurricane moves toward land, onshore winds push water in front of the storm and cause water levels to rise as the storm makes landfall. This storm surge can range from several to 30-plus feet and, along with the waves that accompany the storm, inflict the greatest damage to infrastructure, Young said.Wetlands can dampen the effect of storm surge, the problem is that scientists don’t fully understand the impact that adding wetlands might have. “In order to predict the impact of wetlands on storm surge, you need to have good storm surge data to understand what happened in the past. But we simply don’t have that data,” Young said. “It’s one of the gaping holes that we have in understanding what’s going on at the coast.”The problem is that storm surge is hard to measure. “You can’t just go out there and stand with a stick and measure a 30-foot storm surge.” There’s also a tremendous amount of variability in storm surge height along the shore, variability that isn’t reflected in current storm impact models.Scientists can measure storm meteorology – wind speeds and directions, rainfall and such – but until they can measure the ground effects of storm surge, including how far inland the waves are penetrating, “we’ll never be able to say much of anything about storm impact, and we certainly won’t be able to calibrate, verify and check the veracity of the models being used.”As a result, the models are flying blind, Young said. Add to this the fact that land loss is happening at such a rate in the Gulf, due to subsidence of the Delta and exacerbated by rising sea levels, that Young fears that the billion-dollar restoration programs planned for the region will do little to maintain the status quo, let alone repair previous damage.“I’m afraid that over the long term this is a losing battle,” Young said. “If the government of the State of Louisiana wants to do its citizens the best service, it needs to begin to understand how it will relocate some of these communities.”*On October 7, the abstract, paper 6-6: “Restoring Coastal Louisiana Will Not Guarantee the Protection of Infrastructure from Storms: Policy Makers Should Also Plan for Strategic Relocation of Critical Infrastructure and Vulnerable Communities” will be presented at the Joint Meeting. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 26, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080926143747.htm | Flood-alert System Eased Fears At Texas Medical Center | The Texas Medical Center (TMC) was close to flooding during and after Hurricane Ike, but a long-term collaboration with Rice University paid off by calming fears of the kind of deluge that caused extensive damage during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. | With stunning accuracy, Rice researchers predicted the peak surge of Houston's Brays Bayou during and immediately after Ike, despite power outages that shut down the university's computing center at a critical time."The TMC was very happy about how well the system worked and the fact that we were able to pull this off via a long-distance connection," said Phil Bedient, Rice's Herman Brown Professor of Engineering and a widely known expert on flood warning and storm surges. "They were very concerned, because if the medical center had gone under, it would have been a mess."Bedient, who with the TMC set up a real-time flood alert system in the years since Allison, saw that effort pay off during the storm. "We absolutely nailed it," he said. Having lost power at his own Houston home, Bedient spent a long night during Ike evaluating radar rainfall data coming by phone from the National Weather Service's radar through Vieux & Associates Inc. in Oklahoma and calling medical center officials with his predictions."Brays was two feet from going over its banks," he said. "The measured water flow in the bayou was 25,500 cubic feet per second. We had predicted 26,800, and we predicted it to occur at almost exactly the same time." The bayou, which runs just to the south of the medical center, floods at 29,000 cubic feet per second, he said."If we'd gotten another inch or two, the bayou would have gone over," said Bedient. "And that inch or two could have come hours later."Bedient and his colleagues at the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disaster Center (SSPEED) are working to extend those same predictive capabilities to all of Greater Houston. SSPEED is an organization of Gulf Coast universities, emergency managers and public and private partners formed to address deficiencies in storm prediction, disaster planning and evacuations from New Orleans to Brownsville.The goal, said Bedient, is to provide authorities with information from a new flood-prediction tool while there's still time to save lives and property. If a road is likely to go under or a bridge may be washed over, officials will get the word quickly."We love meteorologists, but they always look up, and they don't look down," he said. "We're doing the evaluation down here on the ground, where the meteorology meets the road."SSPEED will host a major conference at Rice on severe storm prediction and global climate impact Oct. 29-31. For information, visit the Web site at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 18, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080918091331.htm | Doppler On Wheels Deployed At Hurricane Ike | The only scientific team to successfully brave Hurricane Ike's knock-down winds and swells in Galveston was the DOW, the Doppler on Wheels mobile weather radar operated by the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) in Boulder, Colo. | "The DOW mission to Ike provided, for the first time, high-resolution radar data collected from the ground of the inside of a hurricane eye strengthening during landfall, and from a hurricane that directly impacted a large urban area," said scientist Josh Wurman of CWSR.The National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported DOW was deployed on a 35-foot-high overpass in Galveston during the passage of Ike."The mission will allow researchers to better understand how phenomena called fine-scale wind streaks and boundary layer rolls, discovered by the the DOW in 1996, affect hurricane evolution," said Steve Nelson, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which funds the DOW. "These rolls may be important in how efficiently heat is extracted from the ocean, and how strongly hurricane winds are slowed by surface friction."The DOW collected data for 17 hours. The center of Ike's eye passed nearly directly over the DOW, allowing scientists to take measurements of the front and rear eyewalls, and of the inside of the eye.Deployed with the DOW were two vehicles equipped with instruments to track winds and raindrop size distributions, and ten unmanned "pods," which measured winds at locations so close to the water that human observers could not safely remain in the vicinity.The vehicles were deployed at raised locations near the ends of the Galveston Causeway.The pods stood watch in lines on the end of the Galveston Sea Wall and the Texas City Sea Wall, with 500-meter-spacing so the passage of small-scale gusts could be measured.The DOW observed several mesovortices--swirling winds--in Ike's eyewall, which intensified winds and rainfall as these mesovortices rotated around the eye."The mesovortices are likely associated with some of the worst localized wind damage caused by Ike," said Wurman."The understanding from the DOW project is essential to improving forecasts of hurricane intensity, path, and rainfall amounts," he said. "It will lead to new insights on the nature of near surface winds in hurricanes, the behavior of hurricane eyewalls and processes inside eyewalls, and processes in hurricane rainbands." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 12, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080912101406.htm | Hurricane Ike Impact Felt In Space | Hurricane Ike has delayed the scheduled Friday arrival of a Russian Progress cargo ship at the International Space Station 220 miles above Earth. | The Progress docking was postponed when the space station's control room at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston was closed Thursday because of the approaching storm.Control of the space station was handed to flight controllers at backup facilities near Austin, Texas, and Huntsville, Ala. Because the Mission Control Center in Houston is responsible for commanding many of the station's systems, U.S. and Russian officials agreed to delay the docking.Russian flight controllers will execute a maneuver to place the Progress spacecraft into a safe orbit away from the station until docking, which is planned for Wednesday, Sept. 17. If Johnson's control center is not restored to full capability for docking, one of the backup facilities may be used to command the station's systems.Station Commander Sergei Volkov and Flight Engineers Oleg Kononenko and Greg Chamitoff are awaiting the arrival of the cargo ship. The spacecraft is carrying more than 2 tons of supplies, including food and fuel. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 12, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080911122529.htm | Hurricane Ike Tracked By European Space Agency's Envisat | Residents along the Gulf Coast are bracing for Hurricane Ike as it travels over the Gulf of Mexico after ripping through Cuba and Haiti. ESA’s Envisat satellite is tracking the storm, which is forecast to make landfall on the Texas coast by 13 September. | Knowing the strength and path of hurricanes is critical for issuing timely warnings. Earth observation (EO) satellites are key means of providing synoptic data on the forces that power the storm, such as cloud structure, wind and wave fields, sea surface temperature and sea surface height.Thanks to Envisat’s unique capability to acquire optical and radar imagery over the same area of the Earth simultaneously, the top and bottom of a hurricane can be viewed at the same time. The unique view of Hurricane Ike on the left is an example of combined optical and radar images, showing the swirling cloud-tops and the shape of the wind-driven sea surface. Moreover, satellite-based radar instruments have the capability of penetrating heavy clouds and precipitations and can provide day and night high-resolution observations of critical ocean parameters, such as local wind, waves and currents over a 400-km-wide region.Using these capabilities specific to radar satellites, Dr Bertrand Chapron of IFREMER, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, and Dr Fabrice Collard of France's CLS radar application division in Brest, have developed sets of algorithms that allow data from the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument aboard Envisat to be processed in Near-Real Time (NRT) and to produce state-of-the-art ocean parameters.Taking advantage of the broad availability of Envisat ASAR wide swath acquisitions taken over the hurricane region, the corresponding sea surface roughness map, wind speed map and surface current are made widely available on the SOPRANO ocean products demonstration website developed with ESA."The knowledge of hurricane eye details, the radius of very high winds, details on the swell fields, and the new information on atmosphere feedback to ocean surface velocity will certainly help coupled ocean-atmosphere models to better predict hurricane track and intensity," Dr Chapron said.As clearly revealed for Hurricane Ike, wind speeds around the hurricane’s eye can far exceed 40m/s (about 80 knots).The sea surface roughness map clearly shows a minimum in the well-delineated eye where the conditions are relatively calm. Around the eye of the storm, the sea surface velocities also capture the circular direction of the prevailing wind and waves, as visible in this image over Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas on 7 September.This analysis of the residual Doppler from the radar echoes allows for the retrieval of radial velocities which are used to provide systematically and in Near Real Time a map of the radial component of sea surface velocity.The colour of the graphics shown in the ‘current’ section is representative of a very strong eastward motion in the southern part of the hurricane and a symmetrical strong westward motion in the northern part. These observations are clearly in line with the hurricane winds turning counter clockwise.In the future, these combined instantaneous wind speed, wave heights and surface velocity maps will be integrated into models to improve storm track and intensity forecasts."Sentinel-1, the follow on to Envisat’s SAR mission, will have an improved instrument capability with dual polarisation and higher imaging resolution, and will benefit from this demonstration to achieve better winds accuracy in extreme conditions," Dr Collard said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 9, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080909154813.htm | 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Kicking Into High Gear | For the first time in the 2008 hurricane season, there were four tropical cyclones active in the Atlantic Ocean basin on one day (Sept. 2). September is considered the peak of the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, and in the first week of September there were four tropical cyclones that forecasters were watching. | Why is September the peak month for hurricanes? NASA oceanographer, Bill Patzert at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provided the answer: "Hurricanes are fueled by warm ocean temperatures and September is the end of the Northern Hemisphere ocean warming season. The 2008 Atlantic hurricane season started early with the formation of Tropical Storm Arthur on May 30, from the remnants of the eastern Pacific Ocean's first storm, Alma, which crossed Central America and reformed in the Gulf of Mexico. It took one month and four days for the next storm to form, Bertha. Now, the action is definitely picking up. The tropical Atlantic is warm, but not unusually so. In the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, temperatures are certainly well above the 80 degree Fahrenheit threshold, so conditions are ripe for generating and sustaining major tropical storms and hurricanes."Once a powerful Category 3 hurricane, now a tropical depression, Gustav moved from northwest Louisiana into northeastern Texas and into Arkansas by Sept. 3. Like Tropical Storm Fay in August, Gustav's legacy will lie in large rainfall totals. According to the National Hurricane Center's discussion on Sept. 2, "Storm total rainfalls are expected to be five to ten Inches with isolated maximums of 15 inches over portions of Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Rainfall amounts of 4-8 inches have been already reported in parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana."Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Hanna formed near the Leeward Islands from the eighth tropical depression. Observed by the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to contain a deep and intense thunderstorm tower on Sept. 1 (often a precursor to intensification), it subsequently strengthened briefly into a hurricane before weakening under the influence of vertical wind shear (winds that can weaken or tear a tropical cyclone apart). On Sept. 3 and 4 Hanna was pounding the Bahamas with heavy rains and tropical storm force winds, according to the National Hurricane Center.The ninth tropical depression of the year formed some 1,200 miles east of the Leeward Islands and has blown up into Tropical Storm Ike. On Sept. 4, Ike strengthened into a major hurricane, Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, with maximum sustained winds near 145 mph. Ike is forecast to head west and may also affect the Bahamas.Behind Ike, on Sept. 2, the tenth tropical depression in the Atlantic Ocean basin was born. Tropical Depression 10 formed west of the African coast, so it has a long way to go before it has any impact on the U.S. or the Caribbean. By the late morning, that tropical cyclone became Tropical Storm Josephine.In August, Fay's ten-day romp from the U.S. Southeast northward up the Appalachian Mountains seemed like a harbinger for September's storms. Fay took her time going northward and dumped tremendous amounts of rain along the way. Melbourne Beach, Fla., received as much as 25.28 inches of rain. Other cities in various states reported high totals: Thomasville, Ga., reported 17.43 inches; Camden, Ala., received 6.85 inches; Beaufort, S.C., received 6.11 inches; Carthage, Tenn., reported 5.30 inches, and Charlotte, N.C., reported 5.90 inches. Fay was a perfect example of how weaker tropical storms can cause flooding inland."Our findings [in a recent journal article] indicate that weak tropical systems could significantly contribute to rainfall totals,” said Marshall Shepherd, lead author of a NASA-funded study that appeared in a December 2007 issue of the American Geophysical Union’s Geophysical Research Letters. "These types of storms are significant rain producers. The larger hurricanes aren’t frequent enough to produce most of the actual rain during the season and therefore are not the primary storm type that relieves drought in the region."Conditions in the Atlantic this year are favorable for an active season because of warm sea surface temperatures and low wind shear (winds that tear a tropical cyclone apart). "Although La Nina conditions in the equatorial Pacific Ocean have subsided, the atmospheric jet stream over North American and the North Atlantic are still retaining some characteristics of the faded La Nina," Patzert said. "The upper atmospheric winds that could shear the tops off tropical storms are staying north, allowing tropical storms to develop and grow into hurricanes."Compared to the long-term historical record, the first half of the 2008 hurricane season has been busier than usual. According to meteorologist Scott Braun at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.: “Looking back to 1995 and earlier, most seasons have had only 5-7 storms by Sept. 2, whereas this year has had 10. 2008 is surpassed only by 1995 (13), 2003 (11), and 2005 (14) and matched by 2004 (10). Prior to 1995, the last time there were 10 storms by Sept. 2 was 1936 (11).”As Gustav has shown, a powerful, land-falling storm can impact millions of people and do billions of dollars of damage. As we approach the mid-September peak in hurricane activity, hurricane experts are on high alert and the residents of the Caribbean Islands, Central America, and the American Gulf and East coasts should be prepared for additional hurricane activity. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 5, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080905072122.htm | Hurricane Gustav's Path And Development | The development and path of Hurricane Gustav is shown via a sequence of satellite images acquired by Envisat’s Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) instrument on 25 August, 28 August, 30 August and 1 September 2008 (from right to left). | Gustav formed on 25 August 2008 some 400 km southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (seen above far right image), when a tropical wave developed curved bands and an upper level eye feature (visible), causing the U.S. National Hurricane Center to designate it Tropical Depression Seven.Later that day, it had gained enough strength to be designated Tropical Storm Gustav. By the following morning, Gustav had strengthened into a hurricane with winds reaching 150 km per hour.Hurricane Gustav weakened as it moved over Haiti’s mountainous landscape and was downgraded to a tropical storm. The storm moved toward Jamaica (as visible in the 28 August acquisition) and picked up strength. By 29 August, it was again upgraded to a hurricane.As it neared the west end of Cuba on 30 August (visible), Gustav was upgraded to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale with sustained winds near 195 km per hour.By 31 August Hurricane Gustav had entered the Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of more than 210 km per hour and made landfall in Louisiana on 1 September (visible) as a Category 2 hurricane with winds close to 177 km an hour.Hurricanes are large powerful storms that rotate around a central area of extreme low pressure. They arise in warm tropical waters that transfer their heat to the air. The warmed air rises rapidly, in the process creating low pressure at the water surface. Winds begin rushing inwards and upwards around this low-pressure zone.Instruments aboard ESA’s Envisat allow it to observe various features of hurricanes, including high atmosphere cloud structure and pressure, wind pattern and currents at sea surface level and oceanic warm features that contribute to the intensification of hurricanes. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 4, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903134323.htm | Global Warming: Warmer Seas Linked To Strengthening Hurricanes, According to New Research | The theory that global warming may be contributing to stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic over the past 30 years is bolstered by a new study led by a Florida State University researcher. The study will be published in the Sept. 4 edition of the journal Nature. | Using global satellite data, FSU geography Professor James B. Elsner, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor James P. Kossin and FSU postdoctoral researcher Thomas H. Jagger found that the strongest tropical cyclones are, in fact, getting stronger -- and that ocean temperatures play a role in driving this trend. This is consistent with the "heat-engine" theory of cyclone intensity."As seas warm, the ocean has more energy that can be converted to tropical cyclone wind," Elsner said. "Our results do not prove the heat-engine theory. We just show that the data are quite consistent with it."Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first suggested the possible connection between global warming and increases in tropical cyclone intensity in a 2005 paper. He linked the increased intensity of storms to the heating of the oceans, which has been attributed to global warming.Critics argued that the data were not reliable enough to make assertions about the relationship between climate change and hurricanes. Moreover, when scientists looked at the mean tropical cyclone statistics, they did not see an upward trend.Elsner's team addressed both issues by using globally consistent, satellite-derived tropical cyclone wind speeds as opposed to the observational record and by focusing on the highest wind speeds of the strongest tropical cyclones each year.Emanuel's theory is that the intake of warm air near the ocean surface and the exhaust of colder air above the cyclone is what drives a hurricane. Other factors being equal, the warmer the ocean, the warmer the intake of air. This heat-engine theory of how hurricanes increase their intensity is well accepted, but there are many environmental factors, such as wind shear, that might prevent a hurricane from strengthening, Elsner said.To address that problem, Elsner's team looked at a subset of hurricanes that are closest to their maximum possible intensity (MPI). Under the heat-engine theory, every storm will lose some energy through inefficiency, and that loss will limit the storm's potential. The MPI represents the storm's maximum potential under ideal environmental conditions."We speculated that you might not see a trend in the intensity of typical hurricanes due to environmental factors, but if the heat-engine theory is correct, you should see a trend in the intensity of hurricanes at or near their MPI," Elsner said. "On average, the strongest storms are closest to their MPI."The researchers created a data set from satellite observations of hurricane intensity of all tropical cyclones around the globe and looked at the maximum wind speeds for each one during a 25-year period. Tropical cyclones, which include hurricanes, typhoons and tropical storms, occur on average about 90 times per year worldwide.The researchers found that the strongest tropical cyclones are getting stronger, particularly over the North Atlantic and Indian oceans. Wind speeds for the strongest tropical storms increased from an average of 140 mph in 1981 to 156 mph in 2006, while the ocean temperature, averaged globally over the all regions where tropical cyclones form, increased from 28.2 degrees Celsius to 28.5 degrees Celsius during this period."By creating a better, more consistent historical data set, we've been able to weed out quality issues that introduce a lot of uncertainty," Kossin said. "Then, by looking only at the strongest tropical cyclones, where the relationship between storms and climate is most pronounced, we are able to observe the increasing trends in storm intensity that both the theory and models say should be there."While Elsner said the heat-engine theory might explain how tropical cyclones intensify given that everything else is the same, he noted, "We still do not have a complete understanding of why some cyclones intensify, sometimes quite rapidly, and others don't."The research is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Risk Prediction Initiative of the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Studies. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 3, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080903075614.htm | Hurricane Katrina Increased Mental And Physical Health Problems In New Orleans By Up To Three Times | Half the residents of New Orleans were suffering from poor mental and physical health more than a year after their homes and community were devastated by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, according to research published in the September issue of the UK-based Journal of Clinical Nursing. | Researchers from Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, California, spoke to 222 local residents 15 months after they survived one of the worst natural disasters to hit the USA.They discovered that some health problems tripled in the post-Katrina period, compared to a survey of Louisiana residents carried out before the hurricane.“Our results add to the growing body of evidence that disaster survivors continue to suffer from poor mental and physical health for prolonged periods of time after the initial impact” says lead researcher Professor Son Chae Kim.“The health problem rates we recorded were considerably higher than those reported by Louisiana residents to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in 2003. The BRFSS is the world’s largest, on-going telephone health survey system and has been tracking health conditions and risk behaviors in the United States every year since 1984.”Key findings of the survey include:“Some of the findings did surprise us” says Professor Kim. “Being unemployed and having missing family members were not correlated with poor mental health, but they did correlate with poor physical health.“Also, difficult access to clean drinking water did not correlate with poor physical health, but it did correlate with poor mental health.”The aims of the study were to assess the medium-term post-Katrina mental and physical health of New Orleans residents and to determine the demographic, social and environmental factors that predict these problems.The 222 residents were interviewed by University nursing students and faculty members, in partnership with the non-profit organisation Heart to Heart International. They were carried out during door-to-door visits and a community health fair in December 2006, 15 months after Katrina.Just under two-thirds of the respondents (64 per cent) were aged between 35 and 64 years of age and 47 per cent had some college education. Sixty per cent were female, 77 per cent were black and 47 per cent were unemployed.More than a quarter had no healthcare insurance, ate less than they should because of lack of money, lived below the poverty line and said their current house was unsafe due to major damage. Almost a quarter (23 per cent) felt unsafe from crime.“Our findings indicate that the Katrina survivors are likely to suffer from persistent poor mental and physical health for the foreseeable future unless concerted interventions are put in place” says Professor Kim.“The study suggests that post-Katrina efforts should focus on protecting the residents from crime, improving mental health services to those who are depressed and improving food supplies to the poor.“We also hope that our findings will provide valuable guidance for healthcare professionals and policy makers involved in future disasters, by helping them to anticipate and deal with the mental and physical health problems that are left behind once the initial crisis has been dealt with." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
September 2, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080902171149.htm | How Media Covered Katrina Aftermath Affects Response By Blacks And Whites | New research shows that black and white Americans responded differently when exposed to a video presentation that described Hurricane Katrina and then blamed the botched relief efforts on one of two causes: either government incompetence or racism, because the majority of Katrina's victims were black. | "In laboratory experiments over the last decade, whites have tended to have negative reactions including negative emotions and attitudes towards minorities when racism was blamed for or cited as the reason for something. When Katrina happened it offered an opportunity to look at a real world problem that came into our living rooms and the belief system, or world view, that everyone has," said Cheryl Kaiser, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology and lead author of a new study.The study is noteworthy because, unlike previous research that looked at claims of discrimination, whites did not express outright negativity toward blacks. Instead it indicated that whites who were exposed to racial discrimination claims displayed strong positive attitudes toward whites rather than negative attitudes at blacks.Blacks tended to have less favorable attitudes toward whites after seeing the race-blame video than the government-incompetence video, but the difference was not significant. Blacks also showed strong positive attitudes toward blacks in both scenarios.For the study Kaiser and her colleagues from Syracuse and Michigan State universities recruited 93 white and 60 black undergraduate college students. The majority in each group were women.Each participant viewed the video presentation individually on a computer monitor equipped with headphones. All of the students watched a five-minute clip taken from a National Geographic program about the hurricane. Then the video content was divided into two experimental conditions.In a race-blame condition, half the participants viewed a six-minute series of segments in which Katrina victims, public figures and journalists claimed that the government had responded slowly to the disaster because the majority of victims were black. The other participants saw a six-minute government-incompetence series of clips in which victims, public figures and journalists said government incompetence caused the ineffective disaster response. Then all of the participants viewed a three-minute slide show, consisting of 96 photographs, showing the physical damage and physical suffering caused by the hurricane.After the video presentation, each participant filled out questionnaires that assessed their attachment to their own racial group and their attitudes toward blacks, whites and a number of filler groups such as teachers and politicians. In addition, they were asked to provide an explanation for the disaster response they recalled being made most often in the video they saw.Kaiser said that media coverage that focused on racial explanations for the aftermath of Katrina did affect white Americans' attitudes and could have potentially important consequences for intergroup relations."Our sense is some white Americans couldn't understand the claims of racism and it was hard for them to think skin color was responsible for people surviving the hurricane and getting relief. This study helps us understand why discrimination claims make a large number of people in the U.S. uncomfortable. These claims act as a threat to the perceived fairness of our system and people who are at the top, generally white, want to maintain the status quo," she said.The paper, published in the current issue of the journal Social Justice Research, was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation. Co-authors are Collette Eccleston, an assistant psychology professor at Syracuse, and Nao Hagiwara, a psychology doctoral student at Michigan State. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 29, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080829104949.htm | Katrina And Rita Provide Glimpse Of What Could Happen To Offshore Drilling If Gustav Hits Gulf | Shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the U.S., Rice University civil and mechanical engineering professor Satish Nagarajaiah studied damage done to offshore drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. | If tropical storm Gustav strengthens into a Category 3 hurricane, as forecasters are predicting, Nagarajaiah’s findings could provide valuable knowledge about what to expect if Gustav hits the Gulf of Mexico oil platform regions.Katrina and Rita (both Category 5 storms with sustained winds of up to 175 mph) caused the following damage on an estimated 3,000 platforms and 22,000 miles of pipelines that were in the direct path of hurricanes:“Predicting how much damage will occur to oil platforms and rigs is a difficult task,” said Nagarajaiah. “These platforms and rigs may have sustained damage due to past storms, and like anything else, become more susceptible to threats of wind and storm surge."The costs could be steep to an energy company.“If one major deep-water production platform is destroyed, you’re talking about a $1 billion or more loss,” Nagarajaiah said. “If it’s multiple rigs and platforms in a variety of water depths, then we’re talking billions of dollars.”When Katrina and Rita struck, gas prices soared as a result of damage to oil facilities. With oil prices at all-time highs this year, U.S. oil production in the Gulf of Mexico has a direct impact on gasoline prices. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 29, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828120320.htm | Saving Lives Through Smarter Hurricane Evacuations | Hundreds of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars could potentially be saved if emergency managers could make better and more timely critical decisions when faced with an approaching hurricane. Now, an MIT graduate student has developed a computer model that could help do just that. | Michael Metzger's software tool, created as part of the research for his PhD dissertation, could allow emergency managers to better decide early on whether and when to order evacuations — and, crucially, to do so more efficiently by clearing out people in stages. The tool could also help planners optimize the location of relief supplies before a hurricane hits.By analyzing data from 50 years of hurricanes and detailed information on several major ones, and by comparing the information available at various times as a hurricane approached with data from the actual storm's passage, Metzger said he was able to produce software that provides a scientifically consistent framework to plan for an oncoming hurricane. His approach uses the best available hurricane track models developed over the years, but even these can be wrong half of the time — a degree of uncertainty that further complicates the job for local emergency managers.Because many of these managers have never had to confront the life-or-death realities of an approaching hurricane, they need a consistent analytical framework to consider the sequence of complex decisions that they need to make. For example, a poorly planned evacuation could cause roadway gridlock and trap evacuees in their cars — leaving them exposed to the dangers of inland flooding. As another example, ordering too many precautionary evacuations could lead to complacency among local residents, who might then ignore the one evacuation advisory that really matters."All in all, this is a complex balancing act," Metzger says.The concept of evacuating an area in stages — focusing on different categories of people rather than different geographical locations — is one of the major innovations to come out of Metzger's work, since congestion on evacuation routes has been a significant problem in some cases, such as hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Metzger suggests that, for example, the elderly might be evacuated first, followed by tourists, families with children, and then the remaining population. The determination of the specific categories and their sequence could be determined based on the demographics of the particular area.By spacing out the evacuation of different groups over a period of about two days, he says, the process would be more efficient, while many traditional systems of evacuating a given location all at once can and have caused serious congestion problems. With his system, officials would get the information needed to "pull the trigger earlier, and phase the evacuation," he says, and thus potentially save many lives. Coincidentally, during the recent hurricane Fay in Florida, a modest version of a selective evacuation was implemented successfully when tourists were asked to leave while residents remained in place.Other factors that could help to make evacuations more effective, he says, include better planning in the preparation of places for evacuees to go to, making sure buses and other transportation are ready to transport people, and preparing supplies in advance at those locations.Metzger, who is a research assistant in the MIT Engineering Systems Division's Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, and a PhD student in the Operations Research Center, received a second-place award out of more than 100 entries from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security earlier this year for the work. He has already discussed his conclusions with federal and state emergency officials, who said they are interested in adopting the new methodology. The hope is that they will initially use it side by side with their existing procedures, in order to track exactly how the results would compare, Metzger says. It is possible that his methods, implemented as a visually appealing computer program, could be used as a "cockpit training tool" for local emergency managers.His adviser Richard Larson, Mitsui Professor of Engineering Systems and of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says Metzger's approach "embodies elements of engineering, management and the social sciences." For example, while much of the work was strictly mathematical in the analysis of decision-making strategies, there was also a strong component of sociology involved in evaluating people's responses to false-alarm evacuations.Metzger has discussed the work with officials in South Africa, and also received an award from the National Science Foundation's graduate student conference. He plans to refine the software further over the course of the next year or so. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 26, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080825103529.htm | Building A Stronger Roof Over Your Head: 'Three Little Pigs' Project Begins First Tests | With hurricane season upon us, many wonder if the roof over their heads will hold firm in the face of high winds. This week, inaugural tests at The University of Western Ontario’s ‘Three Little Pigs’ project at The Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes will begin to provide answers as researchers ‘raze the roof’. | The Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes is the first of its kind in the world to subject full-scale houses to pressures that simulate the effects of winds as strong as a Category 5 hurricane – or 200 mph – all within a controlled environment. Researchers at the $7-million facility will also be studying the destructive pathways of mould and water.As it is too expensive to engineer an entire house, researchers hope to make them safer through basic additions and amendments, with minimal cost to homeowners. Specifically, researchers will be watching the roof fail to see how load on the house redistributes. This will tell them how failure of the structure occurs and will help answer questions about the adequacy of building codes. Ultimately, different wind damage mitigation strategies and building products will be tested in the facility.Enclosed in a large, blue steel hanger that can be moved on tracks, the test model is a 1,900 square foot, two-storey, four-bedroom house typical of homes found in southwestern Ontario. 60 pressure boxes used to simulate hurricane-force loads are rigged to a framework that surrounds the house.These studies build on expertise developed through 40 years of wind tests at the Boundary Layer Wind Tunnel Laboratory at Western, widely regarded as one of the best wind tunnels in the world. The project is also affiliated with Fanshawe College, the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction, Cambridge Consultants, Ltd. and Insurance Bureau of Canada. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 19, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080818184428.htm | 2007 Hurricane Forecasts Took Blow From Winds And Dry, Dusty Air From Sahara Desert | A new analysis of environmental conditions over the Atlantic Ocean shows that hot, dry air associated with dust outbreaks from the Sahara desert was a likely contributor to the quieter-than-expected 2007 hurricane season. | Factors known to influence the number and intensity of hurricanes in a season, including El Niño, sea surface temperatures, wind, and sea level pressure, led to NOAA forecasts for an above-average 2007 hurricane season. However, the season, which runs from June through November, turned up six hurricanes – a near normal number, but less than the 10 expected and far fewer than the record-breaking 15 hurricanes in 2005.The difference between the 2007 and 2005 seasons could be due in part to the westward reach of Saharan dry air and dust over the North Atlantic, according to researchers, including Bill Lau of NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and co-author of a study on this finding published Aug. 14 in the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Research Letters. The study also confirms the possible role of Saharan dust in shattering predictions for the 2006 hurricane season, and has implications for more accurate predictions for future hurricane seasons.Lau and colleagues previously reported that the presence of dust could have contributed to a weaker 2006 hurricane season than forecasters expected. Dust over the North Atlantic blocked some sunlight from reaching the ocean, accounting for 30 to 40 percent of the drop in sea surface temperatures measured between June 2005 and June 2006. The cooler sea surface increases atmospheric stability and also reduces the transfer of heat from ocean to atmosphere – a major source of fuel that drives hurricanes.Now, the team found that hurricane formation in 2007 was also hampered by Saharan dry air. They go further, however, to describe the extent to which the dry air and associated dust spread across the tropical North Atlantic, as seen by instruments aboard NASA satellites such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. They created a "wind-stretch index," based on the east-west difference in wind speed over the tropical Atlantic. The index is connected to relative humidity over the tropical western Atlantic, and is a perfect measure of how far west dry air and dust from Africa extends over the North Atlantic.The team found that instances of Saharan dry air and dust extending far west over the Caribbean were in sync with conditions that contributed to fewer hurricanes in both 2007 and 2006, including lower sea surface temperatures. They also found that the far-reaching western extent of dust in 2006 and 2007 was associated with less-than-normal humidity over the western North Atlantic."This index hasn't been looked at before," said Lau. "We introduce a way to relate wind stretch to dry air and dust, which correlate very well with humidity in the western tropical Atlantic."The link between dust and humidity, the researchers say, could aid future forecasts. As dust outbreaks occur most often in early summer prior to peak hurricane season, researchers could use a measure of humidity in the western tropical Atlantic to gauge the extent of dust transport, possibly providing an additional parameter to estimate the following month's hurricane activity."The index we proposed may provide practical implications for the prediction of Atlantic hurricane activities," says Donglian Sun of George Mason University in Fairfax Va., and lead author of the study. "Further studies are needed to discern the general prediction capability of our results."If the index is on target, the team believes it could also describe dust's role in past hurricane seasons. Records of historical wind data from ground stations could be applied to the index to infer the westward extent of dry air and dust long before satellites existed to "see" dust from above. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 13, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080812160615.htm | Global Warming Will Do Little To Change Hurricane Activity, According To New Model | In a study published in the July 2008 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, Drs. David S. Nolan and Eric D. Rappin from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science describe a new method for evaluating the frequency of hurricane formation in present and future tropical climates. | While current thinking about changes in hurricane frequency comes mostly from computer simulations of global climate, the computer models used for these studies can only represent the coarsest features of hurricanes, thus casting doubt in their predictions of hurricane activity.The new approach by Nolan and Rappin, developed in collaboration with Dr. Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, uses computer models with much more accurate representation of the processes that lead to hurricane formation, much the same way a digital image with more pixels allows for a more detailed photographic image.The models are used to simulate the rate of hurricane development in tropical atmospheres with varying values of sea surface temperature and vertical wind shear (which is the extent to which wind speed and direction changes with height in the atmosphere). These two variables – ocean temperature and wind shear -- are considered to be the two most important factors in predicting hurricane activity, both in operational forecasting and in consideration of climate change."We designed the computer simulations to show that as the ocean temperature increased, hurricanes would form more rapidly and easily, even in the presence of wind shear," says Nolan, associate professor of Meteorology at the Rosenstiel School. "Instead, we got exactly the opposite result. As the water temperature increased, the effectiveness of the wind shear in suppressing hurricane formation actually became greater."The simulations show that if they do form, hurricanes become stronger in the warmer environments. Together, these results suggest that in a global warming world, there would be less hurricanes, but those that do form could become stronger. The same prediction has recently been made by other studies using global climate models, and the similarity of the two predictions enhances confidence in the results."The additional aspect that our method offers is a much more accurate picture of the process of tropical storm and hurricane formation, as compared to the global models," Nolan said. "Our ongoing work with this model and others should lead to a much better understanding of the relationship between climate and global hurricane activity." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 8, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080808114131.htm | NOAA Forecasts Even Stronger Atlantic Hurricane Season For 2008 Than Earlier Prediction | In the August update to the Atlantic hurricane season outlook, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has increased the likelihood of an above-normal hurricane season and has raised the total number of named storms and hurricanes that may form. Forecasters attribute this adjustment to atmospheric and oceanic conditions across the Atlantic Basin that favor storm development - combined with the strong early season activity. | NOAA now projects an 85 percent probability of an above-normal season – up from 65 percent in May. The updated outlook includes a 67 percent chance of 14 to 18 named storms, of which seven to 10 are expected to become hurricanes, including three to six major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. These ranges encompass the entire season, which ends November 30, and include the five storms that have formed thus far.In May, the outlook called for 12 to 16 named storms, including six to nine hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes. An average Atlantic hurricane season has 11 named storms, including six hurricanes and two major hurricanes.“Leading indicators for an above-normal season during 2008 include the continuing multi-decadal signal – atmospheric and oceanic conditions that have spawned increased hurricane activity since 1995 – and the lingering effects of La Niña,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “Some of these conditions include reduced wind shear, weaker trade winds, an active West African monsoon system, the winds coming off of Africa and warmer-than-average water in the Atlantic Ocean.”Another indicator favoring an above-normal hurricane season is a very active July, the third most active since 1886. Even so, there is still a 10 percent chance of a near normal season and a five percent chance of a below normal season.NOAA’s hurricane outlook is a general guide to the expected level of hurricane activity for the entire season. NOAA does not make seasonal landfall predictions since hurricane landfalls are largely determined by the weather patterns in place as a hurricane approaches.Five named storms have formed already this season. Tropical Storm Arthur affected the Yucatan Peninsula in late May and early June. Bertha was a major hurricane and the longest-lived July storm (July 3-20) on record. Tropical Storm Cristobal skirted the North Carolina coastline. Dolly made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane at South Padre Island, Texas on July 25. And on August 5, Tropical Storm Edouard struck the upper Texas coast.“It is critical that everyone know the risk for your area, and have a plan to protect yourself, your family and your property, or to evacuate if requested by local emergency managers. Be prepared throughout the remainder of the hurricane season,” Bell said. “Even people who live inland should be prepared for severe weather and flooding from a tropical storm or a hurricane.”The Atlantic hurricane season includes activity over the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico. The peak months of the season are August through October. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
August 3, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080730175524.htm | Timing Is Everything: How Vulnerable To Flooding Is New York City? | A report just released in the most recent issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society offers hope that a new high-resolution storm surge modeling system developed by scientists at Stony Brook University will better be able to predict flood levels and when flooding will occur in the New York metropolitan area, information crucial to emergency managers when planning for impending storms. The report also warns that flooding is dependent not just upon the intensity of the tropical storm, hurricane, or nor'easter, but also on the local phase of the tide at the time of the storm. | In a project funded by New York Sea Grant, Brian Colle, Associate Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, and colleagues tested the utility of coupling a state-of the art atmospheric model with an ocean model from the Stony Brook Storm Surge (SBSS) system in order to predict storm surges for the NYC metropolitan region. Colle and colleagues tested their combined model against Tropical Storm Floyd and a nor'easter from 11-12 December 1992, and found the model predicted peak water levels comparable (within 10 percent) to those measured during the storms at several water level gauges around the region."Ultimately, the goal is to provide emergency managers with a range of possibilities as to what may happen as the result of a storm, and this approach shows great promise," says Dr. Colle.The modelers also performed simulations to assess the impact of parameters such as local tide level and wind intensity on flooding severity. Model simulations showed that if Tropical Storm Floyd had arrived in NYC a week earlier, coinciding with a spring (fortnightly) high tide, water levels would likely have been high enough for minor flooding to occur. Another simulation, which used wind levels of a Category 1 hurricane timed to arrive at spring high tide, predicted water levels likely to have caused significant flooding. These results suggest that the New York City metropolitan region was spared from flooding during Tropical Storm Floyd only because the storm's winds had weakened before reaching the region and because the strongest winds luckily occurred during local low tide."We're playing Russian roulette in some sense with these storms coming up the coast," says Colle. "If we have a high tide or spring high tide when we have one of these events, then we're in trouble."If a category-3 hurricane hit NYC, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that nearly 30% of the south side of Manhattan would be flooded. Storm surge flooding could threaten billions of dollars of property and have a grave impact on the lives of the millions of people who live in NYC. During the December 1992 nor'easter, storm tides over-topped some of the region's seawalls for only a few hours, but managed to flood the NYC subway and the PATH train systems at the train station in Hoboken New Jersey, shutting down these transportation systems for several days.As sea level rises, NYC becomes even more vulnerable to storm surge flooding. It takes high water levels of only 1.5- 1.75 m (4.92 – 5.74 feet) above mean sea level to cause flooding over some of the southern Manhattan Island seawalls and global warming is expected to increase the rate at which sea level rises from 0.3 m (0.98 feet) per century to 0.5- .75 m (1.64 – 2.46 feet) per century."The vulnerability of the area speaks for itself as we've already had cases of flooding," says Colle. "When coupled with sea level rise, it's not going to take much of a storm to cause flooding as we go into the coming decades, so we are working to provide better forecasting of these events in the future." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
July 28, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080723134455.htm | Hurricane Preparedness Survey: Worries About Drinking Water And Medical Care | Three years after Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of the Gulf Coast, a new survey conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security shows that one-third (34%) of those affected by the storm report they are very prepared if a major hurricane were to strike their communities in the next six months. The top worries of respondents threatened or hit by Hurricane Katrina are that they would not have enough fresh water to drink (42% very worried) and that they would not be able to get needed medical care (41% very worried). | The survey of 5,055 people was conducted in eight states--Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas--and only included residents of high-risk counties, those within 20 miles of the coast. The poll also included a special sample of the New Orleans metropolitan area.The top concern of respondents who were not affected by Katrina is that they would have problems getting gas needed to evacuate (39% very worried). This is a concern that Katrina-affected respondents share (36% very worried) but rank below worries about fresh water and medical care. Those not affected by Katrina are much less likely to be worried about fresh water (27% very worried) and getting needed medical care (29% very worried)."The top concerns of people in high-risk hurricane areas--having enough fresh water, getting medical care, and obtaining gas to evacuate--are all things that public officials can plan for before the major storms of this season hit," said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health.Katrina-affected respondents have a heightened degree of concern across a number of issues compared to those not affected by the storm. These concerns include caring for a chronically ill or elderly household member, having enough cash on hand during the storm's aftermath, dealing with the conditions at an evacuation shelter if they should need to go to one, and being threatened by violence. Approximately one in three Katrina-affected respondents are very worried about each of these problems while those who were not affected by Katrina are less worried.These findings are based on interviews conducted May 27 -- June 23, 2008 with 5,055 adults in high hurricane risk counties in eight states. Twelve percent of the survey's respondents said they were threatened or hit by Hurricane Katrina while 46% were threatened or hit by a different hurricane during the past five years.The results of this survey will be distributed to state and local officials for use in emergency planning.Despite the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, a sizeable number of people living in high-risk hurricane areas say they would not evacuate due to a major storm if government officials said they had to leave. Nearly one in four (23%) Katrina-affected respondents and 28% of other high risk area respondents would stay in their homes. Of those respondents who would need help to evacuate (20% of Katrina-affected respondents and 18% of others), nearly half (46% Katrina-affected and 49% other high-risk respondents) have not arranged that help. Approximately one in four pet owners (25% Katrina-affected and 27% other high-risk respondents) do not have a place they could go and take their pet.Compared to other respondents, those coping with a chronic illness or disability in the household are less prepared for a major hurricane and are more worried about a number of storm related problems. The survey found that 14% of residents of high-risk hurricane areas live in households in which someone has a chronic illness or disability that would require them to get help in order to evacuate. Of this group, 43% do not have help lined up. Seventeen percent are not prepared at all for a major hurricane in the next six months compared to 9% of others. They are also less likely to have a three week supply of the prescription drugs they take (39% compared to 30% of others) and have a first aid kit (30% compared to 20%).Evacuation shelters could also be faced with the challenges of supporting people with chronic illnesses and disabilities. If they get the help they need to evacuate, respondents living in households in which someone has a chronic illness/disability are more likely to go to a shelter (22% compared to 10% of others). The unique needs of families with a chronic illness/disability are evident in their storm-related concerns. They are more likely to be very worried about getting needed medical care (50% compared to 28%), suffering from heat exhaustion (45% compared to 23%), having enough fresh water to drink (41% compared to 27%), and having necessary prescription drugs (41% compared to 19%)."This study shows that if nothing is done, thousands of people with chronic illnesses and disabilities could be stuck in their homes during a major hurricane," said Professor Blendon. "Preparing now for evacuating these groups could prevent future tragedies."Despite the increased risk to mobile home residents during a hurricane, 17% say they would not evacuate in the event of a major storm if officials told them to do so. Nearly one in four (23%) think their home could survive a category 3 or higher hurricane. When asked how prepared they would be if a major hurricane were to strike their community in the next six months, 17% of mobile home residents said they are not prepared at all.This survey part of a series of studies by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security. The study was designed and analyzed by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The project director is Robert J. Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health. The research team also includes Tami Buhr, John M. Benson, and Kathleen J. Weldon of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Melissa J. Herrmann of ICR/International Communications Research. Fieldwork was conducted via telephone for the Project by ICR/International Communications Research of Media (PA) between May 27 and June 23, 2008.The survey was conducted with a representative sample of 5,055 non-institutionalized adults ages 18 and over in high hurricane risk counties in eight states. Survey participants included residents of all counties within 20 miles of the coast in Alabama (500 interviews), Florida (1,007), Georgia (502), Louisiana (1,002), Mississippi (500), North Carolina (506), South Carolina (500), and Texas (538). The survey included 502 residents of the New Orleans metropolitan area, where interviews were conducted with adults from cellphone-only households, as well from households with landline telephones.The results were weighted to represent the total adult population in the high hurricane risk counties of the region as a whole. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.Possible sources of nonsampling error include nonresponse bias, as well as question wording and ordering effects. Nonresponse in telephone surveys produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population. To compensate for these known biases, sample data are weighted to the most recent Census data available from the Current Population Survey for gender, age, race, education, as well as number of adults in the household. Other techniques, including random-digit dialing, replicate subsamples, callbacks staggered over times of day and days of the week, and systematic respondent selection within households, are used to ensure that the sample is representative.The Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through a grant to the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). HSPH provides ASTHO and the CDC with technical assistance for public health communication by monitoring the response of the general public to public health threats. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
July 27, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080721153737.htm | Ocean Surface A Boon For Extreme Event Forecasts, Warnings | For humans in the path of destructive hurricanes and tsunamis, an accurate warning of the pending event is critical for damage control and survival. Such warnings, however, require a solid base of scientific observations, and a new satellite is ready for the job. | The Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason 2 adds to the number of eyes in the sky measuring sea surface and wave heights across Earth's oceans. The increased coverage will help researchers improve current models for practical use in predicting hurricane intensity, while providing valuable data that can be used to improve tsunami warning models."When it comes to predicting hurricane intensity, the curve in the last 40 years has been somewhat flat, with little advance in how to reduce error in predicted intensity," said Gustavo Goni, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Miami. Maps of sea surface height created from satellites, however, could help change the curve.Satellites that measure sea surface height have been running operationally nonstop since November 1992. But more than one is needed to fly at the same time in order to identify all the features that could be responsible for intensification of tropical cyclones all over Earth. The OSTM/Jason 2 mission will help make the additional coverage possible.NASA, university and NOAA investigators, including Goni, work to transform sea surface height information obtained from satellites, such as OSTM/Jason 2, into maps of ocean heat content. Forecasters can use the maps to develop models to predict how hurricanes will strengthen.Determining heat content from sea surface height is possible because warm water is less dense and hence sits higher than cooler water. In some regions, such as inside and outside the Gulf Stream current, the temperature differences result in more than a one-meter (three-foot) difference in sea surface height. Goni and colleagues use this established concept to estimate from sea level variations how much heat is stored in the upper ocean in areas where hurricanes typically develop and intensify.While sea surface height may not necessarily be the most significant parameter for hurricane intensity forecasts, researchers now know that if sea surface height is accounted for in current forecast models, errors in forecasts for the most intense storms are reduced. For weak storms, the reduction in error is not very significant. However, for storms in the strongest category 5 range, the heat content in the upper ocean derived from sea surface height becomes increasingly important. "This is a good thing, because these are the storms that produce the most damage," Goni said."OSTM/Jason 2 will help us to keep the necessary coverage that we need to identify ocean features that can be linked to tropical cyclone intensification, because with only one satellite we may miss some of them," Goni said.Upper ocean heat content derived from sea surface height is now used in operational and experimental forecast models in all seven ocean basins where tropical cyclones exist.In December 2004, two satellites happened to be in the right place at the right time, capturing the first space-based look at a major tsunami in the open ocean. Within two hours of a magnitude 9 earthquake in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sumatra, the Jason 1 and Topex/Poseidon satellites fortuitously passed over the path of the resulting tsunami as it traveled across the ocean. It measured the leading wave, traveling hundreds of miles per hour in the open ocean, at about 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) tall.Wave height measurements like those of the Indian Ocean tsunami do not provide an early warning because the information is not relayed to ground stations in real time. That's the job of early warning systems operated by NOAA and other global organizations that currently employ a network of open-ocean buoys and coastal tide gauges. Sea surface height measurements of tsunamis can, however, help scientists test and improve ground-based models used for early warning. One such system developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., and undergoing tests at NOAA's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, Ewa Beach, Hawaii, could become operational within about three years.Most tsunamis are caused by undersea earthquakes. Using the JPL-developed system, when seismometers first identify and locate a large earthquake, scientists can use GPS measurements to search around the earthquake's source to see if land has shifted, potentially spurring a tsunami. Scientists can then immediately compile the earthquake's size, location, and land movement into a computer program that generates a model tsunami to determine the risk of a dangerous wave. After the wave passes, scientists can search through wave height data from satellites and verify what the model predicted."Satellite data play the crucial role of verifying tsunami models by testing real tsunami events," said JPL research scientist Tony Song. "If an earthquake generates a tsunami, does the satellite data match observations on the ground and model predictions?""One of the unique pieces of satellite observations is the large-scale perspective," said JPL research scientist Philip Callahan. Tsunamis can have waves more than 161 kilometers (100 miles) long. Such a wave would likely go unnoticed by an observer in a boat on the ocean's surface. But satellite altimeters like OSTM/Jason 2 can see this very long wave and measure its height to an accuracy of about 2.5 centimeters (one inch).Scientists' ability to test tsunami warning models will be aided by OSTM/Jason 2. With the Topex/Poseidon mission now ended, the currently orbiting Jason 1 has now been joined by and will eventually be replaced by OSTM/Jason 2. This will help ensure that future tsunamis will also be observed by satellites as well as by buoys and tide gauges."The biggest value in satellite measurements of sea surface height is not in direct warning capability, but in improving models so when an earthquake is detected, you can make reliable predictions and reduce damage to property and people," Callahan said.For more information on OSTM/Jason 2, visit: For more information on JPL's climate change research programs, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
July 23, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080722152609.htm | Better Than Power Grid: New Microgrid Network Proposed For More Dependable, Cheaper Power | Hurricane Katrina helped University of Texas professor, Alexis Kwasinski, formulate a new plan for the U.S. telecom system: a de-centralized power architecture that would have kept the lights and phones on in New Orleans. Kwasinski maintains that a microgrid-based power plant with its own local power sources and independent control would be more dependable, efficient, and cost effective than traditional telecom power systems. | Microgrids would also be a quick and inexpensive way to include renewable energy sources for both existing and developing systems."There has been surprisingly little research on disaster damage and restoration of telecommunications systems," says Kwasinski. "My survey of the Gulf coast after Katrina showed how devastating a single downed line or incapacitated substation can be. The answer is diverse power input. You integrate different types of local power sources with diverse energy delivery infrastructures through multiple-input converter modules."Since the communications industry power standard is direct current (DC) local networks, Kwasinski is exploring DC generation systems using a microgrid-based telecom power plant with a modular distributed architecture. Energy would come from a mixture of renewable energy sources, microturbines, fuel cells, and interconnection to the existing utility grid. Converters in secondary distribution frames would isolate short circuit currents. Since the utility grid is a secondary source, the microgrid would be protected against the grid's surges and failures.The savings would be generous. Microgrids could "sell" excess power to the utility grid. Costs decrease because of reduced energy storage, less down time, equipment operating at maximum efficiency, lower hardware expense, and optimal power input control based on energy costs."I think the most exciting aspect of the research is how flexible this approach is," says Kwasinski. "It works for developing countries who can add components to the system as they can afford it. Existing systems can easily be retrofitted with a microgrid system operating as a secondary distribution method. Small devices like solar panels and windmills can be added ad hoc, making for a painless transition to renewable energy at a competitive cost." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
July 13, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080709110842.htm | Architect Professor Advocates Best-building Practices For High Wind Regions | More than ever before, building design and construction can be significantly improved to reduce wind pressures on building surfaces and to help better resist high winds and hurricanes in residential or commercial construction, said NJIT architecture professor Rima Taher, PhD. Taher, who is also a civil/structural engineer, teaches at the New Jersey School of Architecture. Courses taught by her include topics related to wind and earthquakes with guidelines and recommendations for better design and construction in hurricane and earthquake prone areas. | "Certain home shapes and roof types can make a big difference," she said.She recommends the following for anyone building in high wind regions.Design buildings with square, hexagonal or even octagonal floor plans. "Such designs reduce wind loads," she said.Roofs with multiple slopes such as a four-sloped hip roof perform better under wind forces than gable roofs with two slopes. Gable roofs are common only because they are cheaper to build. Research and testing show that a 30-degree roof slope has the best results, she said.Wind forces on a roof tend to be uplift. "This explains why roofs blow off during extreme wind events," she said. To combat uplift, she advises connecting roofs to walls with nails, not staples. Stapled roofs were banned in Florida after Hurricane Andrew.Aim for strong connections between the structure and foundation. Structural failure is often progressive where the failure of one structural element triggers the failure of another. Connections can be inexpensively strengthened.Roof overhangs are subject to wind uplift forces which could trigger a roof failure. In the design of the hurricane-resistant home, the length of these overhangs should be limited to about 20 inches.The design of the researched cyclonic home includes simple systems to reduce the local wind stresses at the roof's lower edges such as a notched frieze or a horizontal grid. Install the latter at the level of the gutters along the homes' perimeter.An elevated structure on an open foundation reduces the risk of damage from flooding and storm-driven water.Taher also teaches some courses to help prepare architecture graduates for the Architect Registration Exam. She is the author of a new book about structural systems for the exam. Last year her article about the design of low-rise buildings for extreme wind events appeared in the Journal of Architectural Engineering. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
July 9, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708162456.htm | How Intense Will Storms Get? New Model Helps Answer Question | A new mathematical model indicates that dust devils, water spouts, tornadoes, hurricanes and cyclones are all born of the same mechanism and will intensify as climate change warms the Earth's surface. | The new equation, developed by University of Michigan atmospheric and planetary scientist Nilton Renno, could allow scientists to more accurately calculate the maximum expected intensity of a spiraling storm based on the depth of the troposphere and the temperature and humidity of the air in the storm's path. The troposphere is the lowest layer of Earth's atmosphere.This equation improves upon current methods, Renno says, because it takes into account the energy feeding the storm system and the full measure of friction slowing it down. Current thermodynamic models make assumptions about these variables, rather than include actual quantities."This model allows us to relate changes in storms' intensity to environmental conditions," Renno said. "It shows us that climate change could lead to increases in how efficient convective vortices are and how much energy they transform into wind. Fueled by warmer and moister air, there will be stronger and deeper storms in the future that reach higher into the atmosphere."Renno and research scientist Natalia Andronova used the model to quantify how intense they expect storms to get based on current climate predictions. For every 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit that the Earth's surface temperature warms, the intensity of storms could increase by at least a few percent, the scientists say. For an intense storm, that could translate into a 10 percent increase in destructive power.Renno's model is what scientists call a "generalization" of Daniel Bernoulli's 18th-century equation that explains how airplane flight is possible. Bernoulli's equation basically says that as wind speed increases, air pressure decreases. It leaves out variables that were considered difficult to deal with such as friction and energy sources (which, in the case of a whirling storm, is warm air and condensation of water vapor.) And in certain idealized situations, omitting that information works fine.But by including these additional variables, Renno was able to broaden Bernoulli's equation to apply it to more general phenomena such as atmospheric vortices."The laws of physics are generally very simple," Renno said. "When you make assumptions, you are not representing the simple, basic law anymore. If you don't make assumptions, your equations have those simple, basic laws in them. It gets a little more complicated to get to the solution, but you don't introduce error, and you answer is more elegant, more simple."Renno's work bolsters studies by others who say hurricanes have grown stronger over the past 50 years as sea surface temperatures have risen. This effect has not been extreme enough for humans to notice without looking, scientists say. Hurricane Katrina and Cyclone Nargis were not the most intense storm to hit land in the past half century. Other factors contributed to the devastation they caused.This new model helps explain the formation of spiral bands and wall clouds, the first clouds that descend during a tornado. It's clear now that they are the result of a pressure drop where the airspeed has increased.Renno says unifying convective vortices from dust devils to cyclones will help scientists better understand them."This is the first thermodynamic model that unifies all these vortices," he said. "When you unify them, you can see the big picture and you can really understand what makes them form and change."A co-investigator on NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander mission, Renno has used his new model to calculate the intensity of dust storms in Mars' polar regions. He found that at the Phoenix landing site dust storms can have winds in excess of 200 mph.Renno is an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. Andronova is a research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
June 13, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080610092746.htm | For Hurricanes, Storms, Raindrop Size Makes All The Difference | When Tropical Storm Gaston hit Richmond, Va., in August 2004, its notable abundance of small and mid-sized raindrops created torrential rains that led to unexpected flash flooding throughout the city and its suburbs. New research from NASA has concluded that tropical cyclones like Gaston produce rain differently than another class of storms called "extra-tropical" cyclones. According to the study, making a proper distinction between these systems by looking at both raindrop size and abundance may be a key to assisting weather forecasters in estimating rainfall intensity. By doing so, forecasters can reduce the surprise factor of flash flooding and the unfortunate loss of property and life. | Ali Tokay, a research scientist from the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., compared the rain measurements collected in tropical storms and hurricanes during the past three Atlantic hurricane seasons with measurements after these storms transitioned to being extra-tropical. Tokay's study appeared in the May issue of the American Meteorological Society's Monthly Weather Review.When a tropical cyclone -- the generic name for tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes -- merges with a mid-latitude frontal storm system, measurable changes to the raindrop size and abundance occur as the system transitions to become extra-tropical. Extra-tropical cyclones also form outside the tropics without being part of a tropical system, and tend to form over land rather than over the open ocean. This category of storm can produce anything from a cloudy sky to a thunderstorm as it develops between weather fronts, the boundaries separating air masses of different densities.Tokay looked at raindrop size, rain intensity, and the area in which rain falls in both tropical cyclones and extra-tropical cyclones using ground-based rain-measuring instruments called disdrometers. These instruments measure the range of raindrop sizes in a storm and the intensity of the rainfall. The disdrometer is an important part of the ground-based rain measuring instruments that are used to validate rainfall seen from satellites including the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a joint mission with NASA and the Japanese Space Agency. He concluded that tropical cyclones that form over water tend to rain harder and have a greater amount of smaller drops before they transition to being extra-tropical with raindrops of larger size and mass."Torrents of rainfall from tropical storms are not surprising since the systems are large and move slowly. It is also true that slow moving frontal systems associated with an extra-tropical cyclone can result in abundant rainfall at a site," said Tokay. "What is less known is that the distribution of raindrops within a volume of air between the two systems differs substantially even though weather radar may measure the same returned power which is known as reflectivity." This is why disdrometer measurements of raindrop size are needed."Both rain intensity and reflectivity are integral products of raindrop size distribution, but they are mathematically related to different powers of the drop size," said Tokay. Weather radars cannot measure the range of raindrop sizes. As a result, rainfall estimates from weather radars must employ the use of equations that make assumptions about raindrop size. These assumptions can result in underestimation of rain intensity, and the possibility of deadly flooding.In the study, Tokay uses disdrometer data from various sites around the U.S. and abroad. Most of the data were collected at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., where Paul Bashor of Computer Sciences Corporation, Wallops Island, Va. maintains several types of disdrometers. The data from two tropical storms were collected at Orlando, Fla., and Lafayette, La. through collaborative efforts with Takis Kasparis at the University of Central Florida's Orlando campus, and Emad Habib of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
May 24, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080524082543.htm | NOAA Predicts Near Normal Or Above Normal Atlantic Hurricane Season | NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has announced that projected climate conditions point to a near normal or above normal hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin this year. The prediction was issued at a news conference called to urge residents in vulnerable areas to be fully prepared for the onset of hurricane season, which begins June 1. | “Living in a coastal state means having a plan for each and every hurricane season. Review or complete emergency plans now - before a storm threatens,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “Planning and preparation is the key to storm survival and recovery.”The Climate Prediction Center outlook calls for considerable activity with a 65 percent probability of an above normal season and a 25 percent probability of a near normal season. This means there is a 90 percent chance of a near or above normal season.The climate patterns expected during this year’s hurricane season have in past seasons produced a wide range of activity and have been associated with both near-normal and above-normal seasons. For 2008, the outlook indicates a 60 to 70 percent chance of 12 to 16 named storms, including 6 to 9 hurricanes and 2 to 5 major hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale).An average season has 11 named storms, including six hurricanes for which two reach major status.“The outlook is a general guide to the overall seasonal hurricane activity,” Lautenbacher said. “It does not predict whether, where or when any of these storms may hit land. That is the job of the National Hurricane Center after a storm forms.” Bill Read, director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center, said, “Our forecasters are ready to track any tropical cyclone, from a depression to a hurricane, which forms in the Atlantic Basin. We urge coastal residents to have a hurricane plan in place before the season begins and NHC will continue to provide the best possible forecast to the public.”When a storm forms in the tropics – and even before that stage – NOAA forecasters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Center are in continuous monitoring mode – employing a dense network of satellites, land- and ocean-based sensors and aircraft reconnaissance missions operated by NOAA and its partners. This array of data supplies the information for complex computer modeling and human expertise that serves the basis for the hurricane center’s track and intensity forecasts that extend out five days in advance.The science behind the outlook is rooted in the analysis and prediction of current and future global climate patterns as compared to previous seasons with similar conditions.“The main factors influencing this year’s seasonal outlook are the continuing multi-decadal signal (the combination of ocean and atmospheric conditions that have spawned increased hurricane activity since 1995), and the anticipated lingering effects of La Niña,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “One of the expected oceanic conditions is a continuation since 1995 of warmer-than-normal temperatures in the eastern tropical Atlantic.”“Americans in hurricane-prone states must get serious and be prepared. Government – even with the federal, tribal, state and local governments working perfectly in sync – is not the entire answer. Everyone is part of the emergency management process," said FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison. "We must continue to develop a culture of preparedness in America in which every American takes personal responsibility for his or her own emergency preparedness.”NOAA’s Atlantic hurricane season outlook will be updated on August 7, just prior to what is historically the peak period for hurricane activity.Tropical systems acquire a name – the first of which for 2008 will be Arthur – upon reaching tropical storm strength with sustained winds of at least 39 mph. Tropical storms become hurricanes when winds reach 74 mph, and become major hurricanes when winds reach 111 mph.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
May 20, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080519134306.htm | Global Warming Has Little Impact In Tropical Storm And Hurricane Numbers, NOAA Reports | A new model simulation of Atlantic hurricane activity for the last two decades of this century projects fewer hurricanes overall, but a slight increase in intensity for hurricanes that do occur. Hurricanes are also projected to have more intense rainfall, on average, in the future. | "This study adds more support to the consensus finding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other reports that it is likely that hurricanes will gradually become more intense as the climate continues to warm," said Tom Knutson, research meteorologist and lead author of the report. "It's a bit of a mixed picture in the Atlantic, because we're projecting fewer hurricanes overall.” The findings are reported in a study by scientists at NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., scheduled to be published online on May 18 in Nature Geoscience. Knutson’s co-authors are Joseph Sirutis, Stephen Garner, Gabriel Vecchi, and Isaac Held.The scientists performed hurricane simulations using a new regional model that offers both higher resolution and an improved ability to simulate past observed changes in Atlantic hurricane activity. In a preliminary study published last October in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the new model was shown to successfully reproduce Atlantic hurricane counts year-by-year from 1980 to 2006, including the observed increasing trend.In the new study, the model was used to test the influence of greenhouse gas warming on Atlantic hurricane activity through the end of the 21st century. Simulations reveal higher levels of wind shear and other changes, which act to reduce the overall number of hurricanes in the model.Tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures have increased over the past century and several studies have reported strong correlations between increasing tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures and measures of hurricane activity since at least 1950. Although it is widely accepted in the climate change research community that increases in greenhouse gases have caused most of the global warming of the last half century, the link between increasing greenhouse gases and hurricane activity has been a topic of wide debate and of little consensus.This new study suggests that in the Atlantic basin, global warming from increasing greenhouse gases will have little impact, or perhaps cause some decrease, in tropical storm and hurricane numbers.“We'll need to keep an eye on upcoming model studies to see how robust the projected increase in wind shear over the Atlantic turns out to be,” said Knutson. Large-scale environmental changes in circulation, such as wind shear, as well as possibly moisture, are likely the dominant factors producing the reduced storm frequency. These results support recent research showing that the primary driver of the recent increase in Atlantic hurricane numbers was the warming of the tropical Atlantic relative to the other tropical basins.These results are also consistent with a number of previous modeling and theoretical studies that have examined the influence of global warming from increasing greenhouse gases on hurricane intensity. An increase in hurricane intensities globally is assessed as "likely" in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report issued in 2007. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 29, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080428140002.htm | Will Corals Survive The Stormy Future? | Hurricanes and storms limit the ability of corals in Belize to “recruit” new coral into their communities, according to an Earthwatch-supported study published in Marine Environmental Research. | “Increasing evidence now shows that storms are becoming more intense due to climate change,” said lead author and Earthwatch scientist Dr. James Crabbe from the University of Bedfordshire in the United Kingdom.Coral reefs—which can grow to be thousands of years old—form and grow when free-swimming coral larvae in the ocean attach to rocks or other hard surfaces and begin to develop. Intense storms can wipe out this “recruitment” process.“Storms threaten the survival of the entire reef itself,” said Crabbe, who found similar results in another Earthwatch-supported study in Jamaica a few years ago. The new study will appear in the May issue of Marine Environmental Research.“If the storms don’t destroy corals outright, they render them more susceptible to disease, and that is certainly apparent on the Belize reefs,” said Crabbe, who is doing a lecture tour related to this work throughout 2008—deemed the International Year of the Reef by the International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI).The study holds implications for marine park managers, Crabbe said. “They may need to assist coral recruitment and settlement [in hurricane years] by establishing coral nurseries and then placing the baby corals (larvae) in the reef at discrete locations” or by setting up artificial reef blocks to help the corals survive.Crabbe conducted the research in 2006 and 2007 with Edwin Martinez, Earthwatch Field Director in Belize and co-author, as well as with the help of young local scientists. Earthwatch, the world’s largest environmental volunteer organization, has conducted a coral research program in Belize for the last three years.The team measured the size of more than 520 non-branching corals in two major coral reef areas in southern Belize: the Sapodilla Cayes Marine Reserve, a world heritage site in the second largest barrier reef in the world, and the Port Honduras Marine Reserve. In addition to providing habitat for an array of marine life, non-branching massive corals—robust and shaped like mounds, and sometimes called ‘brain corals’—buffer coastal zones from erosive wave energy.Crabbe’s team determined the surface area covered by the corals and entered the growth rates of the corals into a computer model to determine when in history the coral colonies first settled. They compared numbers of corals that started life in each year with hurricane and storm data, and as suggested by data from fringing reefs of Jamaica, the coral recruitment was much lower during storm years, Crabbe said.“The rapid growth of the tourism industry in Belize over the past five years tops the list of threats to the corals,” and agricultural runoff is a close second, Martinez said.“Climate change is coming up the list very quickly,” Crabbe said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 21, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080421151807.htm | Women's Networks Critical To Survival During Hurricane Katrina | More than 1,800 people perished in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005--the largest hurricane death toll in the United States since 1928. For the most vulnerable--the urban poor with little money, no transportation and limited resources--Katrina threatened to take everything. According to a University of Missouri researcher, some of those people survived the hurricane because of quick action from key women who, through pre-existing social networks, were able to mobilize for successful evacuation. | Jacqueline Litt, associate professor and chair of the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at MU, found that informal family and community networks coordinated by women are vital in emergency situations. More than 50 people were evacuated from New Orleans, La., through the efforts of two "core anchors," a 58-year-old woman and her daughter, who initiated communication and organization using established familial and social relationships."Women in normal times act as the glue for networks," Litt said. "They coordinate networks of care giving, oversee the pooling of resources and know how to find each other. In emergencies, they use those same skills. That pre-existing interdependence, trust and knowledge is what made successful evacuations happen."Litt concurs with previous research that networks are central to survival in low-income families. The question she hoped to answer in her study was whether those networks crack under the pressure of emergency situations. Litt discovered the networks were successful during the Katrina evacuations for three reasons.First, government warnings did not appear to carry the same authority as the passing of informal knowledge through trusted network members. Second, women were the key to "pulling together" network ties already embedded in their daily lives. Through those network ties, women had previously been organizing child care and sharing money or job information. Third, the network recognized personal ties and allowed for expansion to include other individuals. For example, one person would not leave another behind."The importance of respecting and maintaining family and kin ties in disaster response, something we now see the government had no capacity to do, cannot be overestimated," Litt said. "Any formal disaster planning should take into consideration, in a practical way, not only the existence but the usefulness of these networks. It's the order in the chaos."Litt's study was based on two years of research on the "Katrina Diaspora" (the flight of storm refugees to other parts of the United States). Litt conducted interviews and attended focus groups with approximately 80 evacuees in mid-Missouri and Baton Rouge, La., examining the significance of women's work in emergency evacuation. Her research will be published in a special issue of the National Women's Studies Association Journal ("New Orleans: gender, the meaning of place, and the politics of displacement.") | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 21, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080418155002.htm | No Place Like Home: Hurricane Katrina's Lasting Impact | New Orleans residents who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina were over five times more likely to experience serious psychological distress a year after the disaster than those who did not. That is one of the findings from a study presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in New Orleans. | The study, conducted by University of Michigan researcher Narayan Sastry and Tulane University's Mark VanLandingham, examines the mental health status of pre-Katrina residents of the City of New Orleans in the fall of 2006---one year after the hurricane. It also describes and analyzes disparities in mental health by race, education and income.Based on a pilot survey that drew a stratified, area-based probability sample of pre-Katrina dwellings in the city, the study is one of the first to provide data representative of the pre-hurricane population. It was designed by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit research organization.A total of 144 individuals participated in the pilot study, including many who moved away from the area after the disaster and had not returned a year later. More than half the study participants were black, nearly two-thirds had a high school diploma or less education, and nearly 60 percent were unmarried. Nearly three-fourths were employed in the month before the hurricane hit.According to Sastry, who is affiliated with RAND and with the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), about 60 percent of study participants had no psychological distress at the time of the interview, while about 20 percent had mild-to-moderate mental illness and another 20 percent had serious mental illness.To assess mental illness, respondents were asked a series of questions from a widely used measure of general psychological distress. How often during the past 30 days, they were asked, did you feel nervous, hopeless, restless or fidgety, depressed, that everything was an effort, and worthless?Blacks reported substantially higher rates of serious psychological distress than whites, Sastry and Van Landingham reported. Almost one-third of blacks were found to have a high degree of distress, compared to just six percent of whites. Those with higher incomes and more education were much less likely to experience serious psychological distress, and those born in Louisiana were much more likely to have serious distress.The researchers also examined how the extent of housing damage was related to psychological distress a year after the disaster. They found that those who lost their homes were five times more likely than those who did not to have serious psychological distress. In all, about 66 percent of the respondents reported that their homes were badly damaged or unlivable."Our findings suggest that severe damage to one's home is a particularly important factor behind socioeconomic disparities in psychological distress, and possibly behind the levels of psychological distress," Sastry said. "These effects may be partly economic, because, for most families who own their home, home equity is the largest element of household wealth."Apart from the financial losses, severely damaged or destroyed housing may prevent people who want to return to New Orleans from doing so because they lack a place to live. This affects their social ties, their employment, and many other factors."The magnitude and permanence of a housing loss suggests that for many people, the psychological consequences of this experience could be profound and lasting."Sastry and VanLandingham emphasize that these findings are preliminary, and that a larger study is now being planned. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 19, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417170213.htm | Climate Change Likely To Intensify Storms, New Study Confirms | Hurricanes in some areas, including the North Atlantic, are likely to become more intense as a result of global warming even though the number of such storms worldwide may decline, according to a new study by MIT researchers. | Kerry Emanuel, the lead author of the new study, wrote a paper in 2005 reporting an apparent link between a warming climate and an increase in hurricane intensity. That paper attracted worldwide attention because it was published in Nature just three weeks before Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans.Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, says the new research provides an independent validation of the earlier results, using a completely different approach. The paper was co-authored by postdoctoral fellow Ragoth Sundararajan and graduate student John Williams and recently appeared in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.While the earlier study was based entirely on historical records of past hurricanes, showing nearly a doubling in the intensity of Atlantic storms over the last 30 years, the new work is purely theoretical. It made use of a new technique to add finer-scale detail to computer simulations called Global Circulation Models, which are the basis for most projections of future climate change."It strongly confirms, independently, the results in the Nature paper," Emanuel said. "This is a completely independent analysis and comes up with very consistent results."Worldwide, both methods show an increase in the intensity and duration of tropical cyclones, the generic name for what are known as hurricanes in the North Atlantic. But the new work shows no clear change in the overall numbers of such storms when run on future climates predicted using global climate models.However, Emanuel says, the new work also raises some questions that remain to be understood. When projected into the future, the model shows a continuing increase in power, "but a lot less than the factor of two that we've already seen" he says. "So we have a paradox that remains to be explained."There are several possibilities, Emanuel says. "The last 25 years' increase may have little to do with global warming, or the models may have missed something about how nature responds to the increase in carbon dioxide."Another possibility is that the recent hurricane increase is related to the fast pace of increase in temperature. The computer models in this study, he explains, show what happens after the atmosphere has stabilized at new, much higher CO2 concentrations. "That's very different from the process now, when it's rapidly changing," he says.In the many different computer runs with different models and different conditions, "the fact is, the results are all over the place," Emanuel says. But that doesn't mean that one can't learn from them. And there is one conclusion that's clearly not consistent with these results, he said: "The idea that there is no connection between hurricanes and global warming, that's not supported," he says.The work was partly funded by the National Science Foundation. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 15, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414214800.htm | Better Understanding Of Hurricane Trajectories Learned From Patterns On Soap Bubbles | Researchers at the Centre de Physique Moléculaire Optique et Hertzienne (CPMOH) (CNRS/Université Bordeaux | A soap bubble is an ideal model for studying the atmosphere because it has analogous physical properties and, like the atmosphere, it is composed of a very thin film in relation to its diameterThe disconcerting resemblance between vortices on soap bubbles and cyclones led the researchers to study their similarities. By analyzing in detail the trajectories of certain recent hurricanes such as Ivan, Jane, Nicholas, etc., the researchers measured the random factor that is always present in the movement of hurricanes. They then demonstrated the remarkable similarity of these fluctuations with those that characterize the disordered movement of the vortices that they created on soap bubbles.Taking this random factor into account in predicting the trajectory of hurricanes will be useful in anticipating the probability of impact on a given site or locality. Although the mean trajectory of hurricanes (without any fluctuations) is beginning to be well simulated by meteorologists, this random factor has, until now, been poorly understood. This discovery highlights a universality in the statistics of trajectory fluctuations and should make it possible in the future to better predict the behavior of hurricanes and anticipate the risks.Notes :1) Laboratoire de Génie Industriel.2) The skin or film of soap is only several microns thick whereas the diameter of the bubble is around ten centimeters.3) Law corresponding to a “Levy flight” random type movement, in other words a type of random walk dominated by several jumps of limited number but of large amplitude.4) With a similar superdiffusive law.Journal reference: Thermal convection and emergence of isolated vortices in soap bubbles, F. Seychelles, Y. Amarouchene, M. Bessafi*, and H. Kellay Université Bordeaux 1, CPMOH UMR 5798 du CNRS and * Université de la Réunion, Lab. de Génie Industriel. Physical Review Letters. April 7, 2008. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 15, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410131548.htm | Forecasters Implement New Hurricane-tracking Technique | A new technique that helps forecasters continuously monitor landfalling hurricanes, giving them frequent and detailed images of a storm's location, will be implemented this summer. | The new system, developed by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, D.C., will be implemented at the National Hurricane Center (NHC).The technique, known as VORTRAC (Vortex Objective Radar Tracking and Circulation), was successfully tested by the hurricane center last year."VORTRAC is an excellent example of the application of basic research to help improve short-term hurricane warnings," says Steve Nelson, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences.The system, which relies on existing Doppler radars along the U.S. coast, provides details on hurricane winds and central pressure every six minutes, indicating whether the storm is gathering strength in the final hours before reaching shore."We are very gratified by the decision of the National Hurricane Center to adopt this new now-casting tool," says NCAR scientist Wen-Chau Lee. "VORTRAC will enable hurricane specialists, for the first time, to continuously monitor the trend in central pressure as a dangerous storm nears land. With the help of VORTRAC, vulnerable communities can be better informed of sudden changes in hurricane intensity."Lee, NRL's Paul Harasti, and NCAR's Michael Bell led the technique's development. Funding came from NSF and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).One of VORTRAC's strengths is that it can use radar data to calculate the barometric pressure at the center of a hurricane, a key measure of its intensity."VORTRAC allows us to take the wind measurements from the radar, turn the crank, and have a central pressure drop out of a calculation," says Colin McAdie, a meteorologist at NHC. "This will be a valuable addition to the tools available to the forecaster."Rapidly intensifying storms can catch vulnerable coastal areas by surprise. Last year, Hurricane Humberto struck near Port Arthur, Texas, after unexpectedly strengthening from a tropical depression to a hurricane in less than 19 hours. In 2004, parts of Florida's southwest coast were caught unprepared when Hurricane Charley's top winds increased from 110 to 145 miles per hour in just six hours as the storm neared land.Lee and his collaborators applied VORTRAC retroactively to the two hurricanes and found that the technique would have accurately tracked their quick bursts in intensity."VORTRAC has demonstrated that it can capture sudden intensity changes in potentially dangerous hurricanes in the critical time period when these storms are nearing land," Bell says.VORTRAC uses the Doppler radar network established by NOAA in the 1990s.About 20 of these radars are scattered along the Gulf and Atlantic coastlines from Texas to Maine. Each radar can measure winds blowing toward or away from it, but no single radar could provide an estimate of a hurricane's rotational winds and central pressure until now.The VORTRAC team developed a series of mathematical formulas that combine data from a single radar near the center of a landfalling storm with general knowledge of Atlantic hurricane structure in order to map the approaching system's rotational winds. VORTRAC also infers the barometric pressure in the eye of the hurricane, a very reliable index of its strength."By merging several techniques, we can now provide a missing link in short-term hurricane prediction," Harasti says.Forecasters using VORTRAC can update information about a hurricane each time a Doppler radar scans the storm, which can be as often as about every six minutes. Without such a technique, forecasters would need at least two coastal radars in close proximity to each other in order to obtain the same information. But most of the network's radars are too far apart to qualify.Each radar can sample conditions out to about 120 miles. This means VORTRAC can track an incoming hurricane for at least several hours, and possibly even as long as a day or more, depending on the storm's speed, trajectory, and size.To monitor the winds of a landfalling hurricane, forecasters now rely on aircraft to drop instrument packages into the storm that gather data on winds and pressure. But due to flight logistics, the aircraft can take readings no more than every few hours, which means that coastal communities may not be swiftly alerted to changes in approaching hurricanes.VORTRAC may also help improve long-range hurricane forecasts by using data from airborne Doppler radars or spaceborne radars to produce detailed information about a hurricane that is far out to sea.Forecasters could input the data to computer models to improve three- and five-day forecasts. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 10, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080410115330.htm | How Strong Is That Hurricane? Just Listen | Knowing how powerful a hurricane is, before it hits land, can help to save lives or to avoid the enormous costs of an unnecessary evacuation. Some MIT researchers think there may be a better, cheaper way of getting that crucial information. | So far, there's only one surefire way of measuring the strength of a hurricane: Sending airplanes to fly right through the most intense winds and into the eye of the storm, carrying out wind-speed measurements as they go.That's an expensive approach--the specialized planes used for hurricane monitoring cost about $100 million each, and a single flight costs about $50,000. Monitoring one approaching hurricane can easily require a dozen such flights, and so only storms that are approaching U.S. shores get such monitoring, even though the strongest storms occur in the Pacific basin (where they are known as tropical cyclones).Nicholas Makris, associate professor of mechanical and ocean engineering and director of MIT's Laboratory for Undersea Remote Sensing, thinks there may be a better way. By placing hydrophones (underwater microphones) deep below the surface in the path of an oncoming hurricane, it's possible to measure wind power as a function of the intensity of the sound. The roiling action of the wind, churning up waves and turning the water into a bubble-filled froth, causes a rushing sound whose volume is a direct indicator of the storm's destructive power.Makris has been doing theoretical work analyzing this potential method for years, triggered by a conversation he had with MIT professor and hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel. But now he has found the first piece of direct data that confirms his calculations. In a paper accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters, Makris and his former graduate student Joshua Wilson show that Hurricane Gert, in 1999, happened to pass nearly over a hydrophone anchored at 800 meters depth above the mid-Atlantic Ridge at about the latitude of Puerto Rico, and the same storm was monitored by airplanes within the next 24 hours.The case produced exactly the results that had been predicted, providing the first experimental validation of the method, Makris says. "There was almost a perfect relationship between the power of the wind and the power of the wind-generated noise," he says. There was less than 5 percent error--about the same as the errors you get from aircraft measurements.Satellite monitoring is good at showing the track of a hurricane, Makris says, but not as reliable as aircraft in determining destructive power.The current warning systems are estimated to save $2.5 billion a year in the United States, and improved systems could save even more, he says. And since many parts of the world that are subject to devastating cyclones cannot afford the cost of hurricane-monitoring aircraft, the potential for saving lives and preventing devastating damage is even greater elsewhere."You need to know, do you evacuate or not?" Makris explains. "Both ways, if you get it wrong, there can be big problems."To that end, Makris has been collaborating with the Mexican Navy's Directorate of Oceanography, Hydrography and Meteorology, using a meteorological station on the island of Socorro, off Mexico's west coast. The island lies in one of the world's most hurricane-prone areas--an average of three cyclones pass over or near the island every year. The team installed a hydrophone in waters close to the island and are waiting for a storm to come by and provide further validation of the technique.Makris and Wilson estimate that when there's a hurricane on its way toward shore, a line of acoustic sensors could be dropped from a small plane into the ocean ahead of the storm's path, while conditions are still safe, and could then provide detailed information on the storm's strength to aid in planning and decision-making about possible evacuations. The total cost for such a deployment would be a small fraction of the cost of even a single flight into the storm, they figure.In addition, permanent lines of such sensors could be deployed offshore in storm-prone areas, such as the Sea of Bengal off India and Bangladesh. And such undersea monitors could have additional benefits besides warning of coming storms.The hydrophones could be a very effective way of monitoring the amount of sea salt entering the atmosphere as a result of the churning of ocean waves. This sea salt, it turns out, has a major impact on global climate because it scatters solar radiation that regulates the formation of clouds. Direct measurements of this process could help climate modelers to make more accurate estimates of its effects.The research has been supported by the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Research, ONR Global-Americas, MIT Sea Grant and the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
April 10, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080409133718.htm | 'Well Above-average' Hurricane Season Forecast For 2008 | The Colorado State University forecast team upgraded its early season forecast today from the Bahamas Weather Conference, saying the U.S. Atlantic basin will likely experience a well above-average hurricane season. | "Current oceanic and atmospheric trends indicate that we will likely have an active Atlantic basin hurricane season," said William Gray, who is beginning his 25th year forecasting hurricanes at Colorado State University.The team's forecast now anticipates 15 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and Nov. 30. Eight of the storms are predicted to become hurricanes, and of those eight, four are expected to develop into intense or major hurricanes (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater. Long-term averages are 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes per year."Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 69 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent," said Phil Klotzbach of the Colorado State hurricane forecast team. "We are calling for a very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 seasons."Current conditions in the Atlantic basin are quite favorable for an active hurricane season. The current sea surface temperature pattern in the Atlantic - prevalent in most years since 1995 - is a pattern typically observed before very active seasons. Warm sea surface temperatures are likely to continue being present in the tropical and North Atlantic during 2008 because of a positive phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). Also, the currently observed weak Azores High will likely promote weaker-than-normal trade winds over the next few months enhancing warm SST anomalies in the tropical and subtropical Atlantic.Additionally, the team expects neutral or weak La Nina conditions in the tropical Pacific, which, combined with a predicted warm north and tropical Atlantic, is a recipe for enhanced Atlantic basin hurricane activity. These factors are similar to conditions that occurred during the 1950, 1989, 1999, and 2000 seasons. The average of these four seasons had well above-average activity, and Klotzbach and Gray predict the 2008 season will have activity in line with the average of these four years.The hurricane forecast team predicts tropical cyclone activity in 2008 will be 160 percent of the average season. By comparison, 2005 witnessed tropical cyclone activity that was about 275 percent of the average season.The hurricane forecast team reiterated its probabilities for a major hurricane making landfall on U.S. soil:The team also predicted above-average major hurricane landfall risk in the Caribbean."The United States was quite fortunate over the last two years in that we had only one hurricane landfall (Humberto - 2007)," Klotzbach said. "None of the four major hurricanes that formed in 2006 and 2007 made U.S. landfall."The Colorado State hurricane forecast team has cautioned against reading too much into the hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 when Florida and the Gulf Coast were ravaged by four landfalling hurricanes each year. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne caused devastating damage in 2004 followed by Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005."The activity of these two years was unusual, but within the natural bounds of hurricane variation," Gray said.Probabilities of tropical storm-force, hurricane-force and intense hurricane-force winds occurring at specific locations along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts within a variety of time periods are listed on the forecast team's Landfall Probability Web site. The site provides U.S. landfall probabilities for 11 regions, 55 sub-regions and 205 individual counties along the U.S. coastline from Brownsville, Texas, to Eastport, Maine. The Web site, available to the public at The hurricane team's forecasts are based on the premise that global oceanic and atmospheric conditions - such as El Nino, sea surface temperatures and sea level pressures - that preceded active or inactive hurricane seasons in the past provide meaningful information about similar trends in future seasons.The team will issue seasonal updates of its 2008 Atlantic basin hurricane activity forecast on June 3, Aug. 5, Sept. 2 and Oct. 1. The August, September and October forecasts will include separate forecasts for each of those months.(1950-2000 Averages in parenthesis) * Numbers in ( ) represent average year totals based on 1950-2000 data. The entire report is available on the Web at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
March 12, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080311120617.htm | Climate Change Predicted To Have Major Impact On Transportation Infrastructure And Operations | While every mode of transportation in the U.S. will be affected as the climate changes, potentially the greatest impact on transportation systems will be flooding of roads, railways, transit systems, and airport runways in coastal areas because of rising sea levels and surges brought on by more intense storms, says a new report from the National Research Council. Though the impacts of climate change will vary by region, it is certain they will be widespread and costly in human and economic terms, and will require significant changes in the planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of transportation systems. | The U.S. transportation system was designed and built for local weather and climate conditions, predicated on historical temperature and precipitation data. The report finds that climate predictions used by transportation planners and engineers may no longer be reliable, however, in the face of new weather and climate extremes. Infrastructure pushed beyond the range for which it was designed can become stressed and fail, as seen with loss of the U.S. 90 Bridge in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina."The time has come for transportation professionals to acknowledge and confront the challenges posed by climate change, and to incorporate the most current scientific knowledge into the planning of transportation systems," said Henry Schwartz Jr., past president and chairman of Svedrup/Jacobs Civil Inc., and chair of the committee that wrote the report. "It is now possible to project climate changes for large subcontinental regions, such as the Eastern United States, a scale better suited for considering regional and local transportation infrastructure."The committee identified five climate changes of particular importance to U.S. transportation;In addition to climate changes, there are a number of contributing factors that will likely lead to vulnerabilities in coastal-area transportation systems. Population is projected to grow in coastal areas, which will boost demand for transportation infrastructure and increase the number of people and businesses potentially in harm's way; erosion and loss of wetlands have removed crucial buffer zones that once protected infrastructure; and an estimated 60,000 miles of coastal highways are already exposed to periodic storm flooding."Rising temperatures may trigger weather extremes and surprises, such as more rapid melting of the Arctic sea ice than projected," Schwartz said. "The highways that currently serve as evacuation routes and endure periodic flooding could be compromised with strong hurricanes and more intense precipitation, making some of these routes impassable." Transportation providers will need to focus on evacuation planning and work more closely with weather forecasters and emergency planners.Infrastructure vulnerabilities will extend beyond coastal areas as the climate continues to change. In the Midwest, for instance, increased intense precipitation could augment the severity of flooding, as occurred in 1993 when farmland, towns, and transportation routes were severely damaged from flooding along 500 miles of the Mississippi and Missouri river systems.On the other hand, drier conditions are likely to prevail in the watersheds supplying the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes as well as the Upper Midwest river system. Lower water levels would reduce vessel shipping capacity, seriously impairing freight movements in the region, such as occurred during the drought of 1988, which stranded barge traffic on the Mississippi River. And in California, heat waves may increase wildfires that can destroy transportation infrastructure.Not all climate changes will be negative, however. Marine transportation could benefit from more open seas in the Arctic, creating new and shorter shipping routes and reducing transport time and costs. In cold regions, rising temperatures could reduce the costs of snow and ice control and would make travel conditions safer for passenger vehicles and freight.Preparing for projected climate changes will be costly. Transportation decision makers continually make short- and long-term investment decisions that affect how the infrastructure will respond to climate change. Response measures range from rehabilitating and retrofitting infrastructure to making major additions to constructing entirely new infrastructure.The committee noted the need for "a more strategic, risk-based approach to investment decisions that trades off the costs of making the infrastructure more robust against the economic costs of failure." In the future, climate changes in some areas may necessitate permanent alterations. For example, roads, rail lines, and airport runways in low-lying coastal areas may become casualties of sea-level rise, requiring relocations or expensive protective measures, such as sea walls and levees.The report calls for the federal government to have a strong role in implementing many of its recommendations that require broad-based action or regulation, such as the creation of a clearinghouse for information on transportation and climate change; the establishment of a research program to re-evaluate existing design standards and develop new standards for addressing climate change; creation of an interagency working group on adaptation; changes in federal regulations regarding long-range planning guidelines and infrastructure rehabilitation requirements; and re-evaluation of the National Flood Insurance Program and updating flood insurance rate maps with climate change in mind.Many of the committee's recommendations need not wait for federal action. Local governments and private infrastructure providers can begin to identify critical infrastructure that is particularly vulnerable to climate change. Professional organizations can single out examples of best practices, and transportation planners and climate scientists can begin collaboration on the development of regional scenarios for likely climate-related changes and the data needed to analyze their impacts. Focusing on the challenges now could help avoid costly transportation investments and disruptions to operations in the future.This report is a collaborative effort between the Transportation Research Board and the Division on Earth and Life Studies of the National Research Council. The sponsors of this report are the Transportation Research Board, National Cooperative Highway Research Program, U.S. Department of Transportation, Transit Cooperative Research Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A committee roster and two charts follow. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
March 10, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306094624.htm | Nutria, A Rat-like Pest Ravaging Gulf Coast Wetlands, Can Be Lured With New Substance | A 10-pound rodent pest called nutria ravaging southern wetlands in the US, which has been especially damaging to the marshland ecology in the Mississippi Delta following Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, may have finally met its match thanks to molecular science that includes the work of Professor Athula B. Attygalle, an expert in molecular chemistry and mass-spectrometry based at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and a team of scientists from Cornell University and University of Iowa. | The biology of the nutria species allows it to reproduce at rapid speed, making it an unwieldy animal to control if released into the wild. A female nutria averages about five young per litter, but can birth as many as 13 at a time. A female can breed again within two days after giving birth, meaning one nutria can have up to three litters per year.To get a sense of their productivity, 20 nutria brought to Louisiana in the 1930s bred an estimated 20 million animals within two decades, according to a wildlife group in Maryland that tracks nutria data, quoted in a recent report by Louisiana journalist Chris Kirkham.Although nutria were brought to all parts of the country, said Kirkham's report , warm weather in Louisiana has boosted their numbers. Already under pressure from saltwater intrusion, the marshes also have to deal with the nutria and their voracious appetite for the vital marsh roots that keep wetlands intact.Professor Attygalle and his biological colleagues, Professor Thomas Eisner and Steven Finckbeiner believe they have located the correct chemical compounds that offer an alternative to free-form hunting and trapping, or ecologically harmful poisoning, in the management of the nutria population."Several volatile compounds, including terpenoids, fatty alcohols, fatty acids and some of their esters, were identified from solvent extracts prepared from anal scent glands of nutria, a.k.a. coypu," said Attygalle. "These compounds can serve as a powerful attractant to the animals, and thus, when applied strategically, serve as a tool in the efforts to control their spread in the easily damaged coastal ecosphere."The major terpenoid constituents were identified as (E,E)-farnesol and its esters by a comparison of their gas chromatographic retention times, and electron-ionization (EI) and chemical-ionization (CI) mass spectra with those of authentic compounds. EI mass spectra of the four farnesol isomers are very similar, however, the ChemStation (Agilent) and GC--MS Solution (Shimadzu) software algorithms were able to identify the natural compound as the (E,E)-isomer, when a high-quality mass spectral library was compiled from reference samples and used for searching. Similarly, the esters were identified as those of (E,E)-farnesol. In contrast to EI spectra, the CI spectra of the (E,E)- and (E,Z)-isomers are distinctly different from those of the (Z,E)- and (Z,Z)-isomers.Moreover, the infrared spectrum of the (E,E)-isomer is distinctly different from those of the other three isomers in the 2962--2968 cm - and 2918--2922 cm 1 bands, which represent asymmetric CH3 and CH2 stretching vibrations, respectively. Finally, the GC retention indices of farnesol and farnesyl ester isomers determined from authentic samples were used to confirm all identifications.For many years, Tabasco sauce magnate E.A. McIlhenny received most of the blame for introducing the rodents from South America to Avery Island in the 1930s. McIlhenny wanted to expand the fur trade in Louisiana at that time, so he brought nutria from South America to his home on Avery Island, the story went. But a hurricane blew down the nutria pen, releasing them into the wild.The myth held for decades, sometimes perpetuated by family members themselves. Five years ago, a historian hired by the family found records that McIlhenny actually bought the nutria from a St. Bernard Parish fur dealer in 1938. He did eventually set the nutria loose, but not because of hurricane damage, said McIlhenny historian and curator Shane Bernard, quoted in reporter Kirkham's recent newspaper interview."I'm confident that all the myth has been stripped away," he said. "Anybody who knows oral history or folklore knows how stories can change when they're passed down from one generation to the next."While Federal agencies have looked at various poisoning methods, none of those efforts has gone very far because of the effects on other species. The work of Professor Attygalle and his associates offers an environmentally friendly bait technique intended to lure nutria to traps for transport away from sensitive coastal zones and marshlands. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
March 1, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080228074324.htm | Increased Hurricane Losses Due To More People, Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms | A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes. | “We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”In a newly published paper in Natural Hazards Review, the researchers also found that economic hurricane damage in the U.S. has been doubling every 10 to 15 years. If more people continue to move to the hurricane-prone coastline, future economic hurricane losses may be far greater than previously thought.“Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and property in coastal hurricane areas, the damage will increase by a great deal as more people and infrastructure inhabit these coastal locations,” said Landsea.The Natural Hazards Review paper, “Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005,” was written by Roger A. Pielke Jr. (University of Colorado), Joel Gratz (ICAT Managers, Inc.), Chris Landsea, Douglas Collins (Tillinghast-Towers Perrin), Mark A. Saunders (University College London), and Rade Musulin (Aon Re Australia).The team used two different approaches, which gave similar results, to estimate the economic damages of historical hurricanes if they were to strike today, building upon the work published originally by Landsea and Pielke in 1998, and by Collins and Lowe in 2001. Both methods used changes in inflation and wealth at the national level. The first method utilized population increases at the county coastal level, while the second used changes in housing units at the county coastal level.The results illustrate the effects of the tremendous pace of growth in vulnerable hurricane areas. If the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane were to hit today, the study estimated it would cause the largest losses at $140 billion to $157 billion, with Hurricane Katrina second on the list at $81 billion.The team concludes that potential damage from storms – currently about $10 billion yearly – is growing at a rate that may place severe burdens on exposed communities, and that avoiding huge losses will require a change in the rate of population growth in coastal areas, major improvements in construction standards, or other mitigation actions. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
February 20, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080220225939.htm | How Will Climate Change Impact Coastal Cities? East Coast Canadian Students Planning | In Sackville, N.B. and the surrounding area, the words Saxby Gale can still inspire shivers of terror. The tropical storm struck overnight on October 5, 1869, leaving widespread destruction in its wake. Storm surges 1.8 metres tall, combined with a high tide, sent water rushing over the dykes at the Tantramar Marsh. According to the Canadian Hurricane Centre, many people and farm animals drowned in the floods and hundreds of boats were beached when the waters receded. | If a storm of the same magnitude were to hit today, “it would cause so much more damage,” says Sabrina Hood, a Dalhousie master’s student in planning.“The water would move in very quickly.”The rural Tantramar region is just as vulnerable, and probably even more so, compared to 138 years ago. It’s where the TransCanada Highway connecting New Brunswick and Nova Scotia goes through, along with the CN Rail Line. The dykes - built by the original Acadian settlers to transform tidal wetlands into rich farmland – are virtually unchanged since the 17th century.With the area at high risk because of climate change, the 22-year-old Dalhousie student is trying to determine what needs to be done: if dykes need to be reinforced or if salt marshes should be reclaimed. The Tantramar District Planning Commission is working on a rural plan and is interested in Ms. Hood’s conclusions.“The area is unplanned – it’s mostly farmland – and planning is really going to take a role as the commission draws up its plan,” says Ms. Hood.Meanwhile, Amanda Kosloski’s research is looking at how climate change might affect land use along Halifax Harbour, from the Macdonald Bridge to Woodside Ferry Terminal on the Dartmouth side. Should wharves be modified, sea walls reinforced or development restricted? She’s working with scientists from Natural Resources Canada and municipal planners with Halifax Regional Municipality.Halifax Harbour may be vulnerable to rising sea levels. Nova Scotia is anticipating the high-tide mark on the Atlantic coast will be at least 70 centimetres higher by the next century: that’s a projected sea level rise of 40 centimetres coupled with the land subsiding by 30 centimetres. Melting glaciers, a melting ice cap and the fact that warmer water takes up more volume than cold are behind the predictions.But climate change isn’t a far-off concept: significant weather events such as the spring flood of 2003, Hurricane Juan in September 2003 and White Juan in February 2004 indicates climate change is already affecting Nova Scotia.“As planners, our job is to think ahead,” says Ms. Kosloski, a 26-year-old in the second year of her master’s degree. “We can have a hand in preventing potential problems.”Ms. Hood, from Stanley, N.B., and Amanda Kosloski, from Richmond Hill, Ont., were each awarded $5,000 fellowships, offered jointly through Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Institute of Planners and Association of Canadian University Planning Program. They are conducting research to plan for climate change – Ms. Hood in the Tantramar region and Ms. Kosloski along Halifax Harbour. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
February 20, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080215191428.htm | African Dust Storms May Cool Atlantic, Lessen Hurricanes | Every year, storms over West Africa disturb millions of tons of dust and strong winds carry those particles into the skies over the Atlantic. According to a recent study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison atmospheric scientists, this dust from Africa directly affects ocean temperature, a key ingredient in Atlantic hurricane development. | "At least one third of the recent increase in Atlantic Ocean temperatures is due to a decrease in dust storms," says lead author Amato Evan, a researcher at UW-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS).In a paper published online in "Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems," the team of scientists describes how dust in the atmosphere cools the ocean by decreasing the amount of energy that reaches the water. The study also demonstrated that the large amount of dust blowing off of Africa in the 1980s and '90s likely cooled the Atlantic enough to prevent conditions that could have resulted in more devastating hurricane seasons similar to 2004 and 2005.As dust from Africa accumulates in the skies over the Atlantic, the atmosphere above the ocean begins to resemble the conditions over Africa. Millions of tons of dust create a drier environment and also reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the ocean. Using a 25-year data record created by co-author Andrew Heidinger, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Evan assessed how much the dust cooled the temperature of the ocean."It's not just one dust storm," Evan says. "It's the cumulative effect of several months of dust storms."The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, for example, was much quieter than predicted and the Atlantic was cooler than in previous years. Evan suggests that the relative lack of hurricane activity and cool ocean temperatures could be partially due to a particularly dusty spring and early summer. 2007 was the dustiest year since 1999.By putting satellite observations and other atmospheric information into a computer simulation, Evan assessed how much energy reached the ocean with the dust in the atmosphere and then again after removing the dust. Evan found that dust cools the Atlantic by an average of one degree Celsius, about two degrees Fahrenheit, each year. In years with a lot of dust activity, such as the 1980s, the dust had a larger cooling effect.In a study published in fall 2006 in "Geophysical Research Letters," Evan demonstrated that the intensity of hurricane seasons in the Atlantic increased when the amount of dust blowing off of Africa decreased and vice versa. The study published today is an effort to explain why this relationship exists and what the past few decades would have looked like without the effects of dust. Evan says these results confirm a direct connection between the intensity of dust storms in Africa and that of hurricanes in the Atlantic.Because of the direct relationship, the amount of dust in the atmosphere could contribute to hurricane season forecasts. "Dust prediction is another tool to diagnose hurricane activity," Evan says. Evan has done some preliminary work to develop an effective way to use satellite observations to predict dust activity up to nine months in advance.Dust storms in Africa have a significant impact on the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean, which, in turn, plays a large role in hurricane activity. Although climate change has taken the spotlight in media conversations about hurricanes, many factors influence these complicated storms. Of the effects of global warming, Evan says: "It's real, but that's not all there is." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
February 11, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080205100014.htm | History Of Quaternary Volcanism And Lava Dams In Western Grand Canyon | John Wesley Powell wrote in 1895: “...what a conflict of water and fire there must have been [in western Grand Canyon]! Just imagine a river of molten rock running down over a river of melted snow.” | Over 110 years later, a synthesis of new and existing dates on these lava flows shows that many are significantly younger than initially thought and all are less than 725 thousand years old. The geochronology data indicates four major episodes when lava flows either erupted into the canyon or flowed over the rim into it: 725-475 thousand years ago (ka), 400-275 ka, 225-150 ka, and 150-75 ka.These flows formed lava dams in western Grand Canyon that had dramatic impact on the Colorado River.This paper* presents light detection and ranging (lidar) data to establish the elevations of the tops and bottoms of basalt flow remnants along the river corridor. These data show the original extent of now-dissected intra-canyon flows and aid in correlation of flow remnants.From 725 to 475 ka, volcanism built a high edifice within Grand Canyon in the area of the Toroweap fault, with dike-cored cinder cones on both rims and within the canyon itself. These large-volume eruptions helped drive the far-traveled basalt flows which flowed down-canyon over 120 km. A second episode of volcanism, from 400 to 275 ka, built a 215-m-high dam along the Hurricane fault, about 15 km downstream.The ca. 200 and 100 ka flows (previously mapped as Gray Ledge) were smaller flows and lava cascades that entered the canyon from the north rim between the Toroweap and Hurricane faults.The combined results suggest a new model for the spatial and temporal distribution of volcanism in Grand Canyon in which composite lava dams and edifices were generally leaky in proximal areas.Available data suggest that the demise of volcanic edifices may have involved either large outburst-flood events or normal fluvial deposition at times when the river was established on top of basalt flows. These data highlight complex interactions of volcanism and fluvial processes in this classic locality.This research, authored by Ryan Crow (University of New Mexico) et al. was published in the February issue of Geosphere, published by the Geological Society of America. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
January 31, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130130647.htm | Increased Hurricane Activity Linked To Sea Surface Warming | The link between changes in the temperature of the sea's surface and increases in North Atlantic hurricane activity has been quantified for the first time. The research - carried out by scientists at UCL (University College London) and due to be published in Nature on January 31 - shows that a 0.5°C increase in sea surface temperature can be associated with an approximately 40 per cent increase in hurricane activity. | The study, conducted by Professor Mark Saunders and Dr Adam Lea of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre and the UCL Tropical Storm Risk forecasting venture, finds that local sea surface warming was responsible for about 40 per cent of the increase in Atlantic hurricane activity (relative to the 1950-2000 average) between 1996 and 2005.The study also finds that the current sensitivity of tropical Atlantic hurricane activity to sea surface warming is large, with a 0.5°C increase in sea surface temperature being associated with a ~40 per cent increase in hurricane activity and frequency.The research focuses on storms that form in the tropical North Atlantic, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico -- a region which produced nearly 90 per cent of the hurricanes that reached the United States between 1950 and 2005. To quantify the role of sea warming it was necessary to first understand the separate contributions of atmospheric circulation and sea surface temperature to the increase in hurricane frequency and activity.Professor Saunders, the lead author of the study, explained how this was done. "We created a statistical model based on two environmental variables -- local sea surface temperature and an atmospheric wind field - which replicated 75-80 per cent of the variance in tropical Atlantic hurricane activity and frequency between 1965 and 2005. By removing the influence of winds from the model we were able to assess the contribution of sea surface temperature and found that it has a large effect. ""Our analysis does not identify whether greenhouse gas-induced warming contributed to the increase in water temperature and thus to the increase in hurricane activity. However, it is important that climate models are able to reproduce the observed relationship between hurricane activity and sea surface temperature so that we can have confidence in their reliability to project how hurricane activity will respond to future climate change."Journal reference: Large contribution of sea surface warming to recent increase in Atlantic hurricane activity, by Prof Mark A. Saunders and Dr Adam S. Lea, appears in the 31 January issue of the journal Nature.This work is supported by the TSR (Tropical Storm Risk) venture sponsored by Benfield (an independent reinsurance intermediary), Royal & Sun Alliance (an insurance group), and Crawford & Company (a claims management solutions company). | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
January 25, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080124115808.htm | Warmer Ocean Could Reduce Number Of Atlantic Hurricane Landfalls | A warming global ocean — influencing the winds that shear off the tops of developing storms — could mean fewer Atlantic hurricanes striking the United States according to new findings by NOAA climate scientists. Furthermore, the relative warming role of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans is important for determining Atlantic hurricane activity. | The article, to be published on January 23 in Geophysical Research Letters, uses observations to show that warming of global sea surface temperatures is associated with a secular, or sustained long-term increase, of vertical wind shear in the main development region for Atlantic hurricanes. The increased vertical wind shear coincides with a downward trend in U.S. landfalling hurricanes.“We looked at U.S. landfalling hurricanes because it is the most reliable Atlantic hurricane measurement over the long term,” says Chunzai Wang, a physical oceanographer and climate scientist with NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami and lead author on the article. “Using data extending back to the middle nineteenth century, we found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. landfalling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up. This trend coincides with an increase in vertical wind shear over the tropical North Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, which could result in fewer U.S. landfalling hurricanes.” For the article, Wang worked with Sang-Ki Lee of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies-University of Miami.In terms of hurricane strength, Wang notes, “The vertical wind shear is not the only factor affecting Atlantic hurricane activity, although it is an important one.” Other factors include atmospheric humidity, sea level pressure, and sea surface temperature. This study also suggests that where the global ocean warming occurs is important for determining the vertical wind shear in the Atlantic hurricane main development region — within the 10°-20° North latitude belt that stretches from west Africa to Central America. Whether future global warming increases Atlantic hurricane activity will probably depend on the relative role induced by sustained long-term warming over the tropical oceans.Observations from 1854 to 2006 show a warming of sea surface temperature occurring almost everywhere over the global ocean, with large warming in tropical regions of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans. Warmer waters in the tropical Pacific, Indian and North Atlantic oceans produce opposite effects upon vertical wind shear; that is, warming in the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans increase vertical wind shear in the Atlantic hurricane main development region, while warming in the tropical North Atlantic decreases vertical wind shear. Overall, warming in the Pacific and Indian oceans is of greater impact and produces increased levels of vertical wind shear which suppresses Atlantic hurricane activity.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
January 22, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080117140831.htm | California Flood Risks Are 'Disaster Waiting To Happen,' Say Engineers | While flooding in California's Central Valley is "the next big disaster waiting to happen," water-related infrastructure issues confront almost every community across the country, according to engineers at the University of Maryland's Clark School of Engineering in separate reports to California officials and in the journal Science. | An independent review panel chaired by Clark School Research Professor of Civil Engineering Gerald E. Galloway said the area between the Sacramento and San Joaquin river floodplains faces significant risk of floods that could lead to extensive loss of life and billions of dollars in damages. The panel's report, "A California Challenge: Flooding in the Central Valley," was commissioned by California's Department of Water Resources.The panel pointed out that many of the area's levees, constructed over the past 150 years to protect communities and property in the Central Valley, were poorly built or placed on inadequate foundations. Climate change may increase the likelihood of floods and their resulting destruction. The panel recommends that state and local officials take swift action to reduce the risk to people and the environment.The comprehensive flood-risk abatement strategy the panel recommends focuses on land-use planning and integration with other basin water management activities."The challenges that California faces are widespread across the nation," Galloway said. "The recent failure of a levee in a Nevada irrigation canal points out growing infrastructure problems."Another civil engineering researcher from the Clark School, Dr. Lewis "Ed" Link, also served on the California panel."I believe the State of California is taking a very enlightened approach to difficult issues," Link said. "Supporting this study is a good example, as is their examination of risk for the entire Central Valley. They are looking strategically at measures that can create long-term solutions, a model for others to follow."Galloway is also co-author of an article in the January 18, 2008 issue of Science -- "Aging Infrastructure and Ecosystem Restoration" -- which calls for the targeted decommissioning of deteriorated and obsolete infrastructure in order to support the restoration of degraded ecosystems."As we move forward with infrastructure enhancement, we must consider how, in the process of carrying out these activities, we can restore and enhance the natural and beneficial functions of the floodplain, which can at the same time reduce flood losses," Galloway said.Link and Galloway were prominent figures in the review of the levee system around New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the area. Link served as director of the federal government's Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, which evaluated the hurricane protection system around New Orleans. Galloway is a former brigadier general with the Army Corps of Engineers and has been part of the State of Louisiana review team looking at long-term plans for restoration of the Gulf Coast. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
January 4, 2008 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080104112955.htm | Louisiana’s Wetlands Are Being Lost At The Rate Of One Football Field Every 38 Minutes | LSU and Ohio State University will battle for the BCS National College Football Championship in the Superdome early next week, but if the game was held in the Louisiana wetlands instead, the entire field would disappear before halftime. | Louisiana’s wetlands are being lost at the rate of approximately one football field every 38 minutes. To fight against this rapid destruction, the two universities joined forces in 2003, forming an ongoing research partnership with the goal of rebuilding the vanishing coastal wetland ecosystem that makes up 30 percent of the nation’s total coastal marsh.Researchers also aim to reduce the flow of nitrogen and other chemicals that pour into the Mississippi River each spring from America’s heartland. This causes an overabundance of nutrients that rob the water of oxygen, creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico – more than 975 square miles of low-oxygen water that limits the sustainable fisheries of the region.“This is a multi-billion-dollar problem that affects our entire nation,” said LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe. “While we battle on the football field, we collaborate in the research field to tackle the issue of coastal wetlands loss.”Louisiana’s wetlands help to make the state the nation’s leader in crude oil production and second in natural gas production, according to America’s Wetland Foundation. These fragile ecosystems also support 25 percent of the nation’s total commercial fishing haul and provide storm protection to five of the country’s largest ports. Wetlands are essential because of their capability to filter the nutrients that would contribute to the dead zone before they get carried into the Gulf; they’re also vital for hurricane protection in storm-sensitive areas like New Orleans.“Louisiana has both the largest amount of wetland loss and the largest dead zone in the country,” said Robert Twilley, associate vice chancellor of research and economic development at LSU, director of the Coastal Systems and Society Agenda, professor of coastal sciences and leader of the Shell Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory, or CEML. “We’re working hard to rebuild our wetlands and reduce nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico, but we can’t do it alone.”That’s where OSU comes in.While LSU scientists focus on Louisiana, addressing the issues of dramatic wetland loss and the continuously growing dead zone, OSU researchers are developing wetlands upstream so that nutrient loads in the Mississippi that would increase the size of the dead zone will be dramatically reduced by the time they reach the delta region. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,008 |
December 31, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071230211952.htm | 2007 A Top Ten Warm Year For U.S. And Globe | The year 2007 is on pace to become one of the 10 warmest years for the contiguous U.S., since national records began in 1895, according to preliminary data from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 is expected to be fifth warmest since records began in 1880. Preliminary data will be updated in early January to reflect the final three weeks of December and is not considered final until a full analysis is complete next spring. | The preliminary annual average temperature for 2007 across the contiguous United States will likely be near 54.3° F- 1.5°F (0.8°C) above the twentieth century average of 52.8°F. This currently establishes 2007 as the eighth warmest on record. Only February and April were cooler-than-average, while March and August were second warmest in the 113-year record.The warmer-than-average conditions in 2007 influenced residential energy demand in opposing ways, as measured by the nation’s Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index. Using this index, NOAA scientists determined that the U.S. residential energy demand was about three percent less during the winter and eight percent higher during the summer than what would have occurred under average climate conditions.Exceptional warmth in late March was followed by a record cold outbreak from the central Plains to the Southeast in early April. The combination of premature growth from the March warmth and the record-breaking freeze behind it caused more than an estimated $1 billion in losses to crops (agricultural and horticultural).A severe heat wave affected large parts of the central and southeastern U.S. in August, setting more than 2,500 new daily record highs.The global annual temperature − for combined land and ocean surfaces – for 2007 is expected to be near 58.0 F – and would be the fifth warmest since records began in 1880. Some of the largest and most widespread warm anomalies occurred from eastern Europe to central Asia.Including 2007, seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 and the 10 warmest years have all occurred since 1997. The global average surface temperature has risen between 0.6°C and 0.7°C since the start of the twentieth century, and the rate of increase since 1976 has been approximately three times faster than the century-scale trend.The greatest warming has taken place in high latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Anomalous warmth in 2007 contributed to the lowest Arctic sea ice extent since satellite records began in 1979, surpassing the previous record low set in 2005 by a remarkable 23 percent. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, this is part of a continuing trend in end-of-summer Arctic sea ice extent reductions of about 10 percent per decade since 1979.Severe to exceptional drought affected the Southeast and western U.S. More than three-quarters of the Southeast was in drought from mid-summer into December. Increased evaporation from usually warm temperatures, combined with a lack of precipitation, worsened drought conditions. Drought conditions also affected large parts of the Upper Midwest and areas of the Northeast.Water conservation measures and drought disasters, or states of emergency, were declared by governors in at least five southeastern states, along with California, Oregon, Maryland, Connecticut, and Delaware at some point during the year.A series of storms brought flooding, millions of dollars in damages and loss of life from Texas to Kansas and Missouri in June and July. Making matters worse were the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin, which produced heavy rainfall in the same region in August.Drought and unusual warmth contributed to another extremely active wildfire season. Approximately nine million acres burned through early December, most of it in the contiguous U.S., according to preliminary estimates by the National Interagency Fire Center.There were 15 named storms in the Atlantic Basin (Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico) in 2007, four more than the long-term average. Six storms developed into hurricanes, including Hurricanes Dean and Felix, two category 5 storms that struck Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Nicaragua, respectively (the first two recorded category 5 landfalls in the Atlantic Basin in the same year). No major hurricanes made landfall in the U.S., but three tropical depressions, one tropical storm and one Category 1 Hurricane made landfall along the Southeast and Gulf coasts.La Niña conditions developed during the latter half of 2007, and by the end of November, sea surface temperatures near the equator of the eastern Pacific were more than 3.6°F (2°C) below average. This La Niña event is likely to continue into early 2008, according to NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
December 13, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071212201954.htm | Natural Climate Changes Can Intensify Hurricanes More Efficiently Than Global Warming | Natural climate variations, which tend to involve localized changes in sea surface temperature, may have a larger effect on hurricane activity than the more uniform patterns of global warming, a report in Nature suggests. | In the debate over the effect of global warming on hurricanes, it is generally assumed that warmer oceans provide a more favorable environment for hurricane development and intensification. However, several other factors, such as atmospheric temperature and moisture, also come into play.Drs. Gabriel A. Vecchi of the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Brian J. Soden from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science analyzed climate model projections and observational reconstructions to explore the relationship between changes in sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone 'potential intensity' - a measure that provides an upper limit on cyclone intensity. They found that warmer oceans do not alone produce a more favorable environment for storms because the effect of remote warming can counter, and sometimes overwhelm, the effect of local surface warming. "Warming near the storm acts to increase the potential intensity of hurricanes, whereas warming away from the storms acts to decrease their potential intensity," Vecchi said. Their study found that long-term changes in potential intensity are more closely related to the regional pattern of warming than to local ocean temperature change. Regions that warm more than the tropical average are characterized by increased potential intensity, and vice versa. "A surprising result is that the current potential intensity for Atlantic hurricanes is about average, despite the record high temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean over the past decade." Soden said. "This is due to the compensating warmth in other ocean basins." "As we try to understand the future changes in hurricane intensity, we must look beyond changes in Atlantic Ocean temperature. If the Atlantic warms more slowly than the rest of the tropical oceans, we would expect a decrease in the upper limit on hurricane intensity," Vecchi added. "This is an interesting piece of the puzzle.""While these results challenge some current notions regarding the link between climate change and hurricane activity, they do not contradict the widespread scientific consensus on the reality of global warming," Soden noted.The journal article is entitled "Effect of Remote Sea Surface Temperature Change on Tropical Cyclone Potential Intensity." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
December 11, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071210104022.htm | Smaller Storms Drop Larger Overall Rainfall In Hurricane Season | Researchers have found that when residents of the U.S. southeastern states look skyward for rain to alleviate a long-term drought, they should be hoping for a tropical storm over a hurricane for more reasons than one. According to a new study using NASA satellite data, smaller tropical storms do more to alleviate droughts than hurricanes do over the course of a season by bringing greater cumulative rainfall. | A new study that provides insight into what kind of storms are best at tackling drought in the southeastern United States. The study focuses on a decade of first-ever daily rainfall measurements by a NASA satellite carrying a weather radar in space. The study's authors believe the same insights can be applied by meteorologists and public officials to other regions where daily satellite rainfall data and storm tracking data are available.In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, meteorologist Marshall Shepherd, an associate professor of geography and atmospheric sciences at the University of Georgia, Athens, and colleagues delved into the ongoing debate about whether global warming is leading to an increase in rainfall intensity. The researchers wanted to determine how much rainfall each type of cyclone, from tropical depressions to category five hurricanes, contributes to overall rainfall. They focused the study on the Southeast in the hope that results could be harnessed to improve drought relief information for the region. Their findings were published today in the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Research Letters."As much of the Southeast experiences record drought, our findings indicate that weak tropical systems could significantly contribute to rainfall totals that can bring relief to the region," said Shepherd, lead author of the NASA-funded study. "These types of storms are significant rain producers. The larger hurricanes aren't frequent enough to produce most of the actual rain during the season and therefore are not the primary storm type that relieves drought in the region."Shepherd created a new measurement method as an efficient way to get a real sense for how much rainfall each type of storm contributes in a given year around the coastal regions of the southeastern U.S. To do so, he had to distinguish an average rainfall day from an extreme rainfall day. Though data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite could offer daily rainfall amounts, the data could not be used to set apart whether rainfall was average or extreme for any given day.Shepherd and his team modeled their metric on the "cooling degree day" that energy companies use to relate daily temperature to energy needs for air conditioning. A cooling degree day is found by subtracting 65 degrees from the average daily temperature. Values larger than zero give some indication whether a day was abnormally warm. Shepherd used daily rainfall data from TRMM to determine 28.9 as the base value of average daily rainfall at one of the world's wettest locations, Maui's Mount Wailea in Hawaii. In the same way as the cooling degree day, the "millimeter day" metric is calculated by subtracting 28.9 millimeters from the average daily rainfall in each of four ocean basins along coastal areas scattered across the south near Houston and New Orleans, east of Miami and south of North Carolina. Values greater than zero indicate a so-called "wet millimeter day" of extreme rainfall.Using daily rainfall data from the TRMM satellite from 1998-2006, Shepherd's team compared the amount of rain that fell in the basins on extreme rainfall days with the location of tropical storms from the National Hurricane Center's storm tracking database to determine how many extreme rainfall days were associated with a particular type of tropical storm.The team found that the most extreme rainfall days occurred in September and October, two of the busiest months of the Atlantic hurricane season. They also found that though major hurricanes produced the heaviest rainfall on any given day, the smaller tropical storms and depressions collectively produced the most rainfall over the entire season. Over half of the rainfall during the hurricane season attributed to cyclones of any type came from weaker tropical depressions and storms, compared to 27 percent from category 3-5 hurricanes.TRMM has transformed the way researchers like Shepherd measure rainfall by providing day-to-day information that did not exist before the satellite's 1997 launch. "Though we've had monthly rainfall data available since 1979 from other sources, it's the daily rainfall data that allows us to see that tropical storm days contributed most significantly to cumulative rainfall for the season due to how frequently that kind of storm occurs," said Shepherd."It's important in the future to build a longer record of daily rainfall to establish, with better confidence, whether trends are occurring," said Shepherd. "This study sets the stage for us to understand how much rainfall weak and strong tropical cyclones contribute annually and whether this contribution is trending upward in response to global warming-fueled growth in tropical cyclones."Shepherd believes advances that will improve study of cyclones and rainfall are "just around the corner" with NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement satellite, scheduled for launch in 2013. An extension of TRMM's capabilities, it will measure precipitation at higher latitudes, the actual size of snow and rain particles, and distinguish between rain and snow. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
December 4, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071203164802.htm | Rates Of Anxiety, Mood Disorders High In Areas Affected By Hurricane Katrina | Almost half of pre-hurricane residents of New Orleans and one-fourth of those living in other affected areas had evidence of an anxiety or mood disorder five to seven months following Hurricane Katrina, according to a new article. | "Hurricane Katrina was the worst natural disaster in the United States in the past 75 years, creating a disaster region as large as Great Britain, killing more than 1,000 people, uprooting 500,000 others and causing more than $100 billion in damage," the authors write as background information in the article. "This vast devastation would lead us to expect a high prevalence of mental illness among people who lived through Katrina."Sandro Galea, M.D., Dr. P.H., of the University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, and colleagues surveyed 1,043 residents who had been living in affected areas of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi before Hurricane Katrina. The telephone survey was conducted between Jan. 19 and March 31, 2006, five to seven months after the storm. Participants were asked about stressors related to the hurricane and screened for symptoms of mood and anxiety disorders--which include depression, panic disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)--within 30 days of the interview.A total of 31.2 percent of the participants had an anxiety-mood disorder, including 49.1 percent of the New Orleans metropolitan area residents and 26.4 percent of the other participants. Among all participants, 16.3 percent had PTSD; this included 30.3 percent of New Orleans residents and 12.5 percent of the others. Individuals who were younger than age 60, female, did not graduate college, had a low family income or were unmarried or unemployed before the hurricane were more likely to have anxiety-mood disorders, and those who were Hispanic or other minorities excluding blacks had lower rates of these conditions."The vast majority of respondents both in the New Orleans metro (91.9 percent) and in the remainder of the sample (81.7 percent) reported experiencing at least one of the 10 categories of hurricane-related stressors," including the death of a loved one, robbery, injury or property loss, the authors write. Among New Orleans residents, the extent of exposure to these stressors was more strongly related to anxiety-mood disorders than among residents of other areas. While New Orleans residents were most likely to develop anxiety-mood disorders following physical illness or injury and physical adversity, the rest of the participants were more likely to develop such a disorder following property loss.The rate of anxiety and mood disorders in New Orleans residents was higher than that typically found in studies of mental illness following natural disasters in the United States, while the rate among the other respondents was roughly equivalent, the authors note. In addition, they conclude, "evidence that avoidable stressors associated with the slow government response to Hurricane Katrina (e.g., physical adversity) had important implications for the mental health of people who lived through Katrina argues strongly for the importance of efficient provision of practical and logistical assistance in future disasters, not only on humanitarian grounds, but also as a way to minimize the adverse mental health effects of disasters." Journal reference: Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(12):1427-1434. The Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group (CAG) is supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health with supplemental support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 30, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071129183753.htm | Recipe For A Storm: Ingredients For More Powerful Atlantic Hurricanes | As the world warms, the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean and atmosphere may be the recipe for stronger, more frequent hurricanes. | University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists have found that the Atlantic organizes the ingredients for a powerful hurricane season to create a situation where either everything is conducive to hurricane activity or nothing is-potentially making the Atlantic more vulnerable to climate change than the world's other hurricane hot spots.After the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, many worry what Atlantic hurricane seasons will look like in a warmer world. Evidence indicates that higher ocean temperatures add a lot of fuel to these devastating storms. In a paper published today in the "Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society," co-authors Jim Kossin and Dan Vimont caution against only looking at one piece of the puzzle. "Sea surface temperature is a bit overrated," says Kossin, an atmospheric scientist at UW-Madison's Cooperative Institute of Meteorological Satellite Studies. "It's part of a larger pattern."Kossin and Vimont, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, noticed that warmer water is just one part of a larger pattern indicating that the conditions are right for more frequent, stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic. The atmosphere reacts to ocean conditions and the ocean reacts to the atmospheric situation, creating a distinct circulation pattern known as the Atlantic Meridional Mode (AMM). The AMM unifies the connections among the factors that influence hurricanes such as ocean temperature, characteristics of the wind, and moisture in the atmosphere.Finding that a basin-wide circulation pattern drives Atlantic hurricane activity helps explain evidence of significant differences in long-term hurricane trends among the world's basins. In a study published last February, Kossin and his co-authors created a more consistent record of hurricane data that accounted for the significant improvement in storm detection that followed the advent of weather satellites. An analysis of this recalibrated data showed that hurricanes have become stronger and more frequent in the Atlantic Ocean over the last two decades. The increasing trend, however, is harder to identify in the world's other oceans.Kossin and Vimont wanted to determine why long-term trends in the Atlantic looked different from those in other basins, particularly in the Pacific, where the majority of the world's hurricane activity occurs. "The AMM helps us understand why hurricanes in the Atlantic react differently to climate changes than those in the Pacific," Vimont says. According to Vimont, the other oceanic basins have their own modes of variability. Understanding how factors vary together provides a new framework from which to consider climate change and hurricanes. "Our study broadens the interpretation of the hurricane-climate relationship," Vimont says.Looking at the larger set of varying conditions provides a more coherent understanding of how climate change affects hurricane activity. In the Atlantic, warmer water indicates that other conditions are also ideal for hurricane development. However, in the Pacific, a hurricane-friendly environment goes along with cooler ocean temperatures in the area where the storms spend their lives. The inconsistent relationship with sea surface temperature leads Vimont and Kossin to conclude that the connection between hurricane activity and climate variability hinges on more than just changes in ocean temperatures."You can never isolate one factor on this planet," Kossin says. "Everything is interrelated."Depending on the other conditions hurricanes care about, warmer oceans can mean different outcomes. Concentrating on how the atmosphere and the ocean work together helps hurricane researchers see the bigger picture. Because higher sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic act in concert with the AMM, Vimont and Kossin suggest that Atlantic hurricanes will be more sensitive to climate changes than storms in other ocean basins.In addition to helping researchers understand and predict the effects of climate change on hurricane activity, Vimont and Kossin can forecast the AMM up to a year in advance. If the AMM is positive, all the conditions are right for hurricane development. If it is negative, those living on the coasts can generally expect a quieter hurricane season. Vimont and Kossin plan to further develop their AMM forecasts for use during the hurricane season. The duo also hopes to continue to research the physical relationships that constitute the AMM as well as how future climate change will affect these modes of climate variability. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 28, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071126134703.htm | Climate Change Likely To Result In Eco-migration: What Can Be Done? | Climate change is the largest environmental change expected this century. It is likely to intensify droughts, storms and floods, which will undoubtedly lead to environmental migrations and potential conflicts in the areas migrated to. | In the aftermath of environmental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina in the US, Rafael Reuveny from Indiana University in the US looks at the role of environmental degradation on population migration, or ‘ecomigration’. He examines its impact on areas receiving migrants and resulting violent conflict in particular. People facing environmental disasters have no choice but to leave the affected area. The larger the migration and the shorter the period over which it occurs, the harder it is to absorb the migrants, raising the likelihood of conflict. For instance, migrants clash over jobs, resources and way of life, and violent interactions such as theft, beating, armed scuffles, seizure of resources and property, murders and insurgencies are likely.In order to minimize the impact of environmental migrations, which can cause violent conflict in areas receiving migrants, Reuveny says developed countries would be wise to invest in preventive strategies both at home and in developing countries – since climate change is expected to degrade the environment considerably this century.Reuveny’s analysis of three case studies – the US Dust Bowl in the 1930s; Bangladesh since the 1950s; and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – shows that although climate change can spur large population movements, public policy can alleviate the pressures of ecomigration. Indeed, if a country can invest in areas affected by environmental problems, the scope of ecomigration can be reduced and transitions can be smoother as more people are likely to return to the area.In Reuveny’s view, “minimizing climate change-induced migration and violent conflict in receiving areas requires an engineered economic slowdown in the developed countries, and population stabilization and economic growth in developing countries financed by the developed countries.” These policies form the basis of the five-step approach he advocates to policy makers.1. Reuveny R (2007). Ecomigration and violent conflict: case studies and public policy implications. Human Ecology (DOI 10.1007/s10745-007-9142-5) | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 27, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071126090229.htm | Number Of Tropical Storms In Recent Past Increasing | Counting tropical storms that occurred before the advent of aircraft and satellites relies on ships logs and hurricane landfalls, making many believe that the numbers of historic tropical storms in the Atlantic are seriously undercounted. However, a statistical model based on the climate factors that influence Atlantic tropical storm activity shows that the estimates currently used are only slightly below modeled numbers and indicate that the numbers of tropical storms in the recent past are increasing, according to researchers. | "We are not the first to come up with an estimate of the number of undercounted storms," says Michael E. Mann, associate professor of meteorology, Penn State, and director of the Earth System Science Center. In the past, some researchers assumed that a constant percentage of all the storms made landfall and so they compared the number of tropical storms making landfall with the total number of reported storms for that year. Other researchers looked at ship logs and ship tracks to determine how likely a tropical storm would have been missed. In the early 1900s and before, there were probably not sufficient ships crossing the Atlantic to ensure full coverage. The researchers report in the current issue of Geophysical Review Letters "that the long-term record of historical Atlantic tropical cyclone counts is likely largely reliable, with an average undercount bias at most of approximately one tropical storm per year back to 1870." The previously estimated undercounts of three or more storms are inaccurate. "We have a very accurate count of Atlantic tropical cyclones beginning in 1944 when aircraft became common," says Mann. "In the 1970s, satellites were added to that mix." With more than 60 years of accurate hurricane counts, the researchers, who included Thomas Sabbatelli, an undergraduate in meteorology and the Schreyer Honors College at Penn State, and Urs Neu, a research scientist at ProClim, Swiss Academy of Sciences, looked at other, independent ways to determine the number of hurricanes before 1944. They looked at how the cycle of El Nino/La Nina, the pattern of the northern hemisphere jet stream and tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures influence tropical storm generation by creating a model that includes these three climate variables. The information is available back to 1870. The statistical model proved successful in various tests of accuracy. The model also predicted 15 total Atlantic tropical storms with an error margin of 4 before the current season began. So far, 14 storms have formed, with a little more than one week left in the season. The model, trained on the tropical storm occurrence information from 1944 to 2006 showed an undercount before 1944 of 1.2 storms per year. When the researchers considered a possible undercount of three storms per year, their model predicted too few storms total. The model only works in the range of around 1.2 undercounted storms per year with the climate data available. The model was statistically significant in its findings. "Fifty percent of the variation in storm numbers from one year to the next appears to be predictable in terms of the three key climate variables we used," says Mann. "The other 50 percent appears to be pure random variation. The model ties the increase in storm numbers over the past decade to increasing tropical ocean surface temperatures. "We cannot explain the warming trend in the tropics without considering human impacts on climate. This is not a natural variation," says Mann. "This . . . supports other work suggesting that increases in frequency, as well as powerfulness, of Atlantic tropical cyclones are potentially related to long-term trends in tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures, trends that have in turn been connected to anthropogenic influences on climate," the researchers report. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 26, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071121144917.htm | Helping Bangladesh Save Lives: Supercomputer Models Provided 24 Hours In Advance Of Cyclone Sidr | Early on the morning of Nov. 16, Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh and showed no mercy. The death toll continues to rise even today. Hundreds of thousands of people were left homeless. But, nearly 24 hours in advance of the storm, Hassan Mashriqui, assistant extension professor of coastal engineering with LSU, the LSU AgCenter and the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program, gave Bangladesh emergency officials storm surge maps so detailed that area agencies were able to take action, saving countless lives. | "It's nice to know that LSU's capabilities helped people there before disaster struck," said Mashriqui. "It's the practical application of all of our theoretical research." On Nov. 12, he saw that the cyclone had developed in the Bay of Bengal. Watching its progress closely, he contacted Imtiaz Hossain, assistant to Robert Twilley, the very next day. Twilley, associate vice chancellor of research and economic development at LSU, director of the Coastal Systems and Society Agenda, professor of coastal sciences and leader of the Shell Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory, or CEML, immediately gave Mashriqui access to a large portion of CEML's supercomputing capabilities to facilitate the development of storm surge models. The following day, Mashriqui went to Tampa, Fla., to give a lecture at a hurricane conference. It was from his hotel room that he was able to access the LSU supercomputing network and run the first model. What he saw sent him scrambling to contact Bangladesh officials. "These models are incredibly accurate and highly detailed," Mashriqui said. "You can pinpoint events down to small counties and towns. We were looking at a 10 -- 12 foot storm surge that would devastate anything in its path." Through an LSU student whose father is employed at the Bangladesh Ministry of Food and Disaster Management in the Office of Disaster Management and Relief Bhaban, a unit that operates much like FEMA, Mashriqui was then able to communicate his findings to dozens of agencies who could then act by raising the danger signal to its highest level, moving people out of harm's way and concentrating relief efforts before the storm even hit. A native of the area, Mashriqui first began running storm surge models on the Bay of Bengal several years ago in conjunction with LSU's Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, forming the Bay of Bengal Cyclone Surge Modeling Program. This project provides modeling support for the Bay of Bengal basin and strives to build partnerships with appropriate agencies. "The advance notice we were able to provide certainly saved lives and helped to lessen the devastation," said Mashriqui. "When you can pinpoint the areas of impact and determine the level of storm surge that far ahead of landfall, it provides critical time for agencies and officials to focus energy and resources to the areas that will need them most." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 20, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071119170227.htm | Skin Disorders In Construction Workers Following Hurricanes Katrina And Rita | Four distinct skin disorders were found in construction workers who helped repair buildings after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, according to a report in the Archives of Dermatology. | Outbreaks of skin diseases frequently occur following hurricanes and flooding, but few of these outbreaks have been thoroughly investigated, according to background information in the article. "Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Aug. 29, 2005, and Hurricane Rita on Sept. 24, 2005. Syndromic surveillance in New Orleans, Louisiana, following these hurricanes indicated that 22 percent of diseases treated were dermatologic conditions (i.e., skin or wound infections and rashes)."Rebecca Noe, M.P.H., at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and colleagues analyzed the results of surveys, skin biopsy specimens and the environmental exposures of 136 civilian construction workers working and living at a New Orleans military base between August 2005 and October 2005. Many of these workers lived in wooden huts and tents with limited sanitation facilities. "Of 136 workers, 58 reported rash, yielding an attack rate of 42.6 percent," the authors write. Forty-one (70.7 percent) of those who reported a rash were examined for diagnosis. Twenty-seven (65.9 percent) were found to have papular urticaria, a sensitivity reaction to insect bites resulting in solid raised bumps on the skin; eight (19.5 percent) had bacterial folliculitis, an infection causing inflammation around the hair follicles; six (14.6 percent) had fiberglass dermatitis, an irritation and inflammation of the skin from contact with fiberglass; and two (4.9 percent) had brachioradial photodermatitis, an abnormal skin reaction to sunlight causing irritation and burning in the arms. Workers who were Native American, worked as roofers or slept in huts that had sustained flooding during Hurricane Katrina were more likely to suffer from papular urticaria than other workers. Native American workers were also more likely to develop fiberglass dermatitis than workers of another race. "A suspected mite infestation of flooded housing units is the most plausible hypothesis, although we were unable to identify the arthropod [such as insects, spiders and scorpions] source," the authors conclude. "People working and living in post-hurricane environments where flooding has occurred may be at an increased risk of exposure to arthropods. To reduce dermatologic morbidity, we suggest avoiding flooded areas, fumigating with an acaricide [pesticide], wearing protective clothing and using arthropod repellent." Journal article: Arch Dermatol. 2007;143(11):1393-1398. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 16, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071115164458.htm | Forests Damaged By Hurricane Katrina Become Major Carbon Dioxide Source | With the help of NASA satellite data, a research team has estimated that Hurricane Katrina killed or severely damaged 320 million large trees in Gulf Coast forests, which weakened the role the forests play in storing carbon from the atmosphere. The damage has led to these forests releasing large quantities of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. | The August 2005 hurricane affected five million acres of forest across Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama, with damage ranging from downed trees, snapped trunks and broken limbs to stripped leaves.Young growing forests play a vital role in removing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere by photosynthesis, and are thus important in slowing a warming climate. An event that kills a great number of trees can temporarily reduce photosynthesis, the process by which carbon is stored in plants. More importantly, all the dead wood will be consumed by decomposers, resulting in a large carbon dioxide release to the atmosphere as the ecosystem exhales it as forest waste product."The loss of so many trees will cause these forests to be a net source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for years to come," said the study's lead author Jeffrey Chambers, a biologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, La. "If, as many believe, a warming climate causes a rise in the intensity of extreme events like Hurricane Katrina, we're likely to see an increase in tree mortality, resulting in an elevated release of carbon by impacted forest ecosystems."Young forests are valued as carbon sinks, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in growing vegetation and soils. In the aftermath of a storm as intense as Katrina, vegetation killed by the storm decomposes over time, reversing the carbon storage process, making the forest a carbon source."The carbon cycle is intimately linked to just about everything we do, from energy use to food and timber production and consumption," said Chambers. "As more and more carbon is released to the atmosphere by human activities, the climate warms, triggering an intensification of the global water cycle that produces more powerful storms, leading to destruction of more trees, which then act to amplify climate warming."Chambers and colleagues from the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., studied Landsat 5 satellite data captured before and after Hurricane Katrina to pull together a reliable field sampling of tree deaths across the entire range of forests affected by Katrina. They found that some forests were heavily damaged while others like the cypress-tupelo swamp forests fared remarkably well.The NASA-built Landsat 5, part of the Landsat series of Earth-observing satellites, takes detailed images of the Earth's surface. Chambers combined results from the Landsat image sampling with data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on NASA's Terra satellite to estimate the size of the entire forested area affected by Katrina. The instrument can detect minute changes in the color spectrum on the land below, enabling it to measure differences in the percentage of live and dead vegetation. This helps researchers improve their estimates of changes in carbon storage and improves their ability to track the location of carbon sinks and sources.The field samples and satellite images, along with results from computer models that simulate the kind of vegetation and other traits that make up the forests, were used to measure the total tree loss the hurricane inflicted. The scientists then calculated total carbon losses to be equivalent to 60-100 percent of the net annual carbon sink in U.S. forest trees."It is surprising to learn that one extreme event can release nearly as much carbon to the atmosphere as all U.S. forests can store in an average year," said Diane Wickland, manager of the Terrestrial Ecology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Satellite data enabled Chambers' research team to pin down the extent of tree damage so that we now know how these kinds of severe storms affect the carbon cycle and our atmosphere. Satellite technology has really proven its worth in helping researchers like Chambers assess important changes in our planet's carbon cycle." The team's findings were published Nov. 15 in the journal Science. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
November 1, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071031172821.htm | Katrina Victims Increasingly Depressed, Traumatized, And Suicidal As Relief Efforts Drag On | According to the most comprehensive survey of people affected by Hurricane Katrina, results of which are being presented today to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery, the percentage of pre-hurricane residents of the affected areas in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi who have mental disorders has increased significantly compared to the situation five to eight months after the hurricane. These findings counter a more typical pattern from previous disasters where prevalence of mental disorders decreases as time passes. | These and other survey results come from follow-up interviews with the Hurricane Community Advisory Group, a statistically representative sample of hurricane survivors assembled to provide information in a series of ongoing tracking surveys about the pace of recovery efforts and the mental health effects of these efforts on hurricane survivors. "It is important for mental health policy planners to have accurate information about the size of the problem they are trying to address among survivors of Hurricane Katrina," says Ronald Kessler, Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School and director of the study. "Our tracking surveys are designed to provide that information." Hurricane Katrina was the deadliest United States hurricane in seven decades, and the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. Over 500,000 people were evacuated, and nearly 90,000 square miles were declared a disaster area (roughly equal to the land mass of the United Kingdom). Although occurring over two years ago, infrastructure reconstruction efforts continue to lag, raising concerns about long-term mental health effects. The Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group initiative was launched to provide an ongoing tracking survey of those effects. The data are designed to help support public health decisions. The survey data presented in the report released today come from a follow-up survey from an original sample of 1,043 people who agreed to join the survey panel and to participate in repeated surveys over several years. The fact that hurricane-related stressors were still quite common in the population nearly two years after the hurricane, and that much of this could be attributed to these continuing stresses suggests that efforts to address the problem of increased mental illness and suicidality among Hurricane Katrina victims must confront continuing needs for practical and logistical assistance. This may be particularly challenging since many pre-hurricane residents of the affected areas are now living elsewhere in the country. Still, it is especially important to reach these geographically displaced people because of their comparatively high risk of serious mental illness.The study is led by researchers from Harvard Medical School and is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, FEMA, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation.The detailed results of this report are in press in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
October 26, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071004100010.htm | ORNL 'Resilience' Plan To Help Tennessee, Mississippi And South Carolina Communities Beat Disaster | A new Oak Ridge National Laboratory initiative could help avert disasters in Tennessee, Mississippi and South Carolina and also lead to more information about climate change. | The new Community and Regional Resilience Initiative (CARRI) will be implemented in Gulfport, Miss., Memphis, and Charleston, S.C., to increase "resilience" - the ability to prepare for, respond to and quickly recover from natural and man-made disasters - of the three communities. These "partner communities" will help develop and share essential knowledge, best practices, tools and techniques to strengthen a community's ability to withstand a major disaster event with minimal downtime to basic government and business services, said CARRI director Warren Edwards. "We will be seeking insights from the experiences of the Gulfport, Memphis and Charleston communities to construct what we are calling our 'resiliency toolbox,' " Edwards said. "We hope to identify what the partner communities need to be truly resilient; use that information to assess vulnerabilities in other communities; and work with them to help them close the gaps. "A resilient community is prepared to help prevent or minimize the loss or damage to life, property and the environment and more quickly return citizens to work, reopen businesses, and restore essential services needed for a full and swift economic recovery." Edwards said the three cities were approached about becoming the first communities for the project because they are susceptible to both natural and man-made disasters. "Memphis is particularly vulnerable to earthquakes because of its proximity to the New Madrid fault line," Edwards said. "And, of course, Gulfport is currently in the process of recovering from Hurricane Katrina with a strong commitment to becoming an even more resilient community in the event of future storms. Charleston has significant hurricane and earthquake threats. Having made great strides in resilience planning, the city has lessons to share." CARRI also may provide clues to potential community response to climate change. Tom Wilbanks, ORNL Corporate Fellow and research director for CARRI, said global warming could potentially affect world weather and precipitation patterns. Government leaders are beginning to look at climate change as a national security issue and examining its impacts on ecosystems and economies. "While the immediate purpose of the study is to examine communities' resilience to storms, this work has definite implications for climate change and will give us a better understanding of how cities will respond to the expected shifts in temperature, weather patterns and environmental conditions we expect as a result," Wilbanks said. Edwards said CARRI could help communities move beyond their reliance on government and first responders and draw on business, education, and civic resources to prepare, plan and respond as efficiently and quickly as possible in the event of a disaster. CARRI will have access to national and international researchers and practitioners who can augment the findings from the community activities with the best information and practices available. "All of our partner communities are already doing some great work, so we look forward to working closely with key leaders in those communities to learn from what they are doing well, to help them locate and address any gaps, and to then formalize and develop some new best practices that can be shared and used by other communities." CARRI is part of the Southeast Region Research Initiative (SERRI). Funded by the Department of Homeland Security, SERRI seeks to provide common tools and methods of anticipating and deterring terrorist attacks and enhancing disaster response for the southeastern United States. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
October 13, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071010171345.htm | Steep Sloped Roofs Lasted Through Katrina Better Than Low Sloped Roofs | A study of roofing damage incurred by Gulf Coast structures following Hurricane Katrina has found that buildings with steep sloped roofs held up better against the high-wind storm damage than buildings that had low sloped roofs. | The study – conducted on behalf of The Roofing Industry Committee on Weather Issues through a cooperative research and development agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Buildings Technology Center – determined that steeper sloped roofs held up better due to the fact the building materials composing the roof structure defend better against wind uplift forces that occur during hurricanes. The study, led by ORNL engineer Andre Desjarlais, concludes that construction of these structures should adhere to current local building codes that have been upgraded over previous codes, closely following manufacturers' guidelines and using compliant edging systems. The funding source is DOE's Office of Building Technologies. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
September 21, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070914170323.htm | How Will Hurricanes Affect Evacuation Along Coastal Roadways? | More than 60,000 miles of United States roadways are in the 100-year coastal floodplain, making them vulnerable to attacks from water surges and storm waves generated by hurricanes. | A new study, in the latest issue of the Journal of Coastal Research, introduces methodology that integrates state-of-the-art models as effective tools for engineering design and hurricane emergency management.According to U.S. census data, more than 50 percent of the population lives within 50 miles of the shoreline, and that coastal population continues to grow. In the last three decades, more than 37 million people, 19 million homes, and countless businesses have been added to coastal areas. These areas are under severe stress owing to increased human activities and climate change.With the rapid development of computer technology, significant advances in modeling storm surges and surface waves have been made in coastal engineering over the last decade. The simulation and prediction of storm surges and waves are intrinsically complex.In the study, the advanced surge model (ADCIRC), coupled with the wave model (SWAN), was used to construct the prediction and effects of Hurricane Georges on the Mobile Bay estuary in 1998. Agreement between the model and data of the poststorm survey was found, demonstrating the effectiveness of the wave and surge prediction on coastal roadways around shallow estuaries. The coupled wave and surge modeling system has also been used to simulate the storm surge and wind waves during Hurricane Katrina that caused the collapse of several coastal bridges. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
September 12, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070906162003.htm | New Faraway Sensors Warn Of Emerging Hurricane's Strength | A new study supported by NASA and the U.S. Office of Naval Research takes forecasters one step further to improving their ability to predict just how powerful an oncoming storm may become by using highly-sensitive sensors located thousands of miles from the storm to detect lightning outbreaks within a hurricane's most dangerous area. | Researchers can now investigate with greater accuracy how the rate of lightning strikes produced within a hurricane's eyewall is tied to the changing strength of that hurricane. A hurricane's eyewall is the inner heat-driven region of the storm that surrounds the "eye" where the most intense rainfall and most powerful winds occur. By monitoring the intensity of lightning near a hurricane's eye, scientists will be able to improve their forecasts of when a storm will unleash its harshest conditions.During the study, researchers used data from a growing network of new, long-range, ground-based lightning sensors, a NASA satellite and aircraft-based sensors. They explored the relationship between eyewall lightning outbreaks and the intensity of two of the most severe Atlantic storms on record before they made U.S. landfall: category five hurricanes Katrina and Rita. An article on this research, also supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, will be published in the American Meteorological Society's Monthly Weather Review later this year. "There are very few observing systems that offer a broad view of a storm over the open ocean where hurricanes tend to build or lose strength," said lead author Kirt Squires, a recent graduate of the meteorology program at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. "What's really compelling about the new sensors is their increased sensitivity to pick up lightning's electromagnetic signal over water from such a long distance. As a result, we can see thunderstorm activity over the ocean from thousands of miles away for the first time. This development is essential to improving the way meteorologists can look at a growing storm to judge just how harsh it will be."When water condenses from vapor into a cloud droplet, latent or hidden heat is released, which in turn builds updrafts -- air moving upwards in a cloud. Latent heat provides the energy that fuels hurricanes. If the ensuing updrafts are strong enough, they can cause the separation of charge that produces lightning. The tight correlation between the rate of lightning strikes, the amount of rainfall and the heat released in the eyewall of a storm allows the lightning rate data to be useful in computer models that forecast hurricane track and intensity."Hurricane forecasters and researchers are very interested in developing methods that allow a continuous examination of the structural growth of the eyewall within hurricanes," said co-author Steven Businger, a senior professor of meteorology at the University of Hawaii. "The fact that lightning is directly linked to the heat energy released in the eyewall makes it a priority for us to examine the evolution of lightning within a storm."Researchers studied data on intensity and lightning strike rate from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, both from 2005. They were trying to determine whether a link existed between the two traits. The researchers combined data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite's microwave radiometers and from sensors onboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's P-3 "hurricane hunter" aircraft that fly into the storm, with the enhanced sensor capability of the NASA co-funded Pacific Lightning Detection Network.The network comprises four state-of-the-art, long-range, high-sensitivity sensors located around the central northern Pacific Ocean. Businger is working with the U.S. division of Finnish technology firm Vaisala, Tucson, Ariz., and other agencies to expand the network with eight additional sensor sites by the end of 2008. It is part of the larger North American Lightning Detection Network of nearly 200 sensors that monitors lightning over the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Though Businger acknowledges that more research is needed, results from this study show that the growth and density of lightning strikes in a hurricane's eyewall provide important insight into the inner workings of the most powerful storms on Earth, information that may in the future help save lives through improved hurricane forecasts. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
September 6, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070904214328.htm | Hurricane Forecast: Heightened Activity For Rest Of Season | Above-average hurricane activity is expected for the remaining three months of the hurricane season, the Colorado State University forecast team said September 4. | The individual month of September and the two-month period of October-November are expected to experience five named storms each. In September, the forecast calls for four of the five storms to become hurricanes and two to become major hurricanes. In October-November, the team forecasts two of the five named storms to become hurricanes and one to become a major hurricane."We expect the remainder of the season to be active," said Phil Klotzbach, lead author of the hurricane forecast. "The conditions in the Pacific are transitioning to a weak La Nina. We have seen low pressure readings in the tropical Atlantic during August. The combination of these two factors usually implies an active season.""We predict that September-November will exhibit characteristics of an active year based on climate signals through August," said William Gray, who has been issuing hurricane forecasts at Colorado State for 24 years.These conditions include Atlantic basin sea surface temperatures that have remained at near-normal values along with ENSO conditions that trended slightly cooler during August. Atlantic sea level pressure values were at near-record low levels during August. June-July 2007 had average activity with two named storms forming during the two-month period (Barry and Chantal). No activity occurred in the deep tropics during June and July.August had about average numbers of tropical cyclone formations. The one hurricane that formed (Dean) reached Category 5 status and lasted for 3.75 days as a major hurricane. This is the most days that a single major hurricane has accrued during the month of August since Hurricane Frances in 2004.The Colorado State team continuously works to improve forecast methodologies based on a variety of climate-related global and regional predictors. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
August 22, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070821171556.htm | Texas-Sized Powerful Hurricane Dean Hits Mexico's Yucatan | The National Hurricane Center reported that Hurricane Dean made landfall around 4:30 a.m. EDT, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 about 35 miles north of the city of Chetumal in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Although the spot where Dean's eye made landfall is rural, and not very populated, Dean came ashore as a Category 5 hurricane, packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph. | At 8:00 a.m. EDT, Dean, a large Category Three hurricane, almost the size of Texas, had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (205 km/hr) while moving over the Yucatan Peninsula. His eye was located near latitude 18.9 degrees north and longitude 88.7 degrees west or about 40 miles (60 kilometers (km)) northwest of Chetumal, Mexico and about 135 miles (220 km) east-southeast of Campeche, Mexico. The estimated minimum central pressure is 935 millibars.Scientists now have the ability to see what a hurricane looks like sideways, thanks to NASA's CloudSat Satellite. CloudSat's Cloud Profiling Radar captured these profiles of Hurricane Dean on August 17 and August 19 as he was heading toward the Yucatan.Dean is moving west-northwest near 20 mph (32 km/hr) and is expected to move on a west-northwestward to westward motion through Tuesday and Tuesday night. On the forecast track, Dean's center will reach the southern Bay of Campeche late Tuesday afternoon and still remain a hurricane.A hurricane watch is in effect for the Gulf coast of Mexico from north of Veracruz to Tampico. A hurricane watch means that hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area, generally within 36 hours. Interests elsewhere in the southern Gulf of Mexico should closely monitor the progress of Dean.The National Hurricane Center noted in its 8:00 a.m. EDT report, "Storm surge flooding and waves will gradually diminish along the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula today. Within the hurricane warning area in the Bay of Campeche, storm surge flooding of 6 to 8 feet above normal tide levels is possible, along with large and dangerous battering waves."Dean is expected to produce storm total rainfall of 5 to 10 inches over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and northern Honduras with maximum amounts of up to 20 inches. These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
August 21, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070821112336.htm | Hurricane Dean Tracked From Space | ESA satellites are tracking the path of Hurricane Dean as it rips across the Caribbean Sea carrying winds as high as 260 km/h. The hurricane, which has already claimed eight lives, is forecast to slam into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday morning. | Dean was upgraded early Tuesday to a Category 5 – the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale – before pummelling the peninsula. Knowing the strength and path of hurricanes is critical for issuing timely warnings; satellites are the best means of providing data on the forces that power the storm, such as cloud structure, wind and wave fields, sea surface temperature and sea surface height.Instruments aboard ESA’s Envisat and ERS-2 satellites allow them to peer through hurricanes. Envisat carries both optical and radar instruments, enabling researchers to observe high-atmosphere cloud structure and pressure in the visible and infrared spectrum. The Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) optical instrument shows the swirling cloud-tops of a hurricane, while radar instruments such as the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) pierce through the clouds to show how the wind fields shape the sea surface and estimate their likely destructive extent. ERS-2 uses its radar scatterometer to observe the hurricane's underlying wind fields. The scatterometer instrument works by firing a trio of high-frequency radar beams down to the ocean, then analysing the pattern of backscatter reflected up again. Wind-driven ripples on the ocean surface modify the radar backscatter, and as the energy in these ripples increases with wind velocity, backscatter increases as well. Scatterometer results enable measurements not only of wind speed but also of direction across the water surface. What makes ERS-2's scatterometer especially valuable is that its C-band radar frequency is almost unaffected by heavy rain, so it can return useful wind data even from the heart of the fiercest storms. Dr Ad Stoffelen of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), which processes ESA’s scatterometer images, said: "Observed winds from hurricane Dean by ESA's ERS-2 scatterometer are provided to meteorologists within the hour. This C-band radar wavelength scatterometer peeks right into the ‘eye’ of a hurricane like Dean, providing timely and precise information on its position and force."The wind field derived from the ESA ERS-2 scatterometer measurements are distributed via a EUMETSAT (European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) project to a registered database of a few hundred users, originating from all over the world, includng the Americas, Australia, Asia and Europe. Scatterometer winds are used directly by shift meteorologists in forecast rooms and to initialise Numerical Weather Prediction models aiding the forecasting of hurricanes 5 days ahead." Another Envisat instrument called the Radar Altimeter-2 (RA-2) uses radar pulses to measure sea surface height (SSH) down to an accuracy of a few centimetres. Near-real time radar altimetry is a powerful tool for monitoring a hurricane's progress and predicting its potential impact because anomalies in SSH can be used to identify warmer ocean features such as warm core rings, eddies and currents. Water temperatures are the main underlying energy reservoir that power hurricanes; together with the correct atmospheric conditions, temperatures need to exceed 26ºC in order to form and maintain a tropical cyclone. Because warm water expands, scientists can locate warm underwater ocean features by detecting bulges in the ocean surface height, as detected by RA-2. The thermal energy of warm water, which partly powers a hurricane, is known as tropical cyclone heat potential (TCHP). Warm waters may extend to at least 100 metres beneath the surface in many of these oceanic features, representing waters of very high heat content. Several hurricanes have intensified when their tracks pass over eddies or other masses of warm water with high TCHP values. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is using Envisat RA-2 results along with those from other space-borne altimeters to chart TCHP and improve the accuracy of hurricane forecasting. Envisat's Advanced Along Track Scanning Radiometer (AATSR) works like a space-based thermometer, acquiring the temperature of the sea surface down to a fraction of a degree. It also returns useful atmospheric data, measuring the temperature of the top of hurricane clouds – the higher into the atmosphere they extend, the colder they are.AATSR information can be correlated with MERIS data cloud height and development to gain a good estimate of the hurricane's precipitation potential, and improve understanding of how this relates to its overall intensity. Condensation of water vapour releases latent heat, which warms the vicinity of the hurricane eye. This in turn evaporates more surface water and feeds the heat engine powering the hurricane. The International Charter 'Space and Major Disasters' has been activated to provide Earth Observation satellite data for assessing the damage of Hurricane Dean in Belize. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
August 18, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070817145231.htm | NASA Eyes Warm Sea Surface Temperatures For Hurricanes | Sea surface temperatures are one of the key ingredients for tropical cyclone formation and they were warming up in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and eastern Atlantic Ocean by the middle of August. As a result, they helped spawn Hurricane Dean in the central Atlantic, and Tropical Storm Erin in the Gulf of Mexico, both during the week of August 13. | By late June, sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were all over 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That's one thing that hurricane forecasters watch for because sea surface temperatures of 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer are needed to power tropical depressions into tropical storms and grow them into hurricanes. These areas or warm sea surface waters (80 degrees F or higher) are depicted in yellow, orange, and red. This data was taken by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer - EOS (AMSR-E) instrument aboard the Aqua satellite. This animation* updates every 24 hours. This animation shows the progression of warm waters slowly filling the Gulf of Mexico (shown in yellow, orange, and red). This natural annual warming contributes to the possible formation of hurricanes in the Gulf. Sea surface temperature data shown here ranges from January 1, 2007 to the present. NASA's Bill Patzert, oceanographer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. said, "The many Atlantic and Gulf citizens still reeling from the shock of the 2004 and 2005 Atlantic hurricane seasons, received some good news … the Atlantic sea surface temperatures that fuel hurricanes are somewhat cooler than the past few years. Based on this, some forecasters have reduced their forecasts. But the news is mixed." When asked what factors forecasters are watching, Patzert said "The jet stream has remained stubbornly north, the possibility of a late-developing La Nina is lurking and Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean sea surface temperatures are ripe for late-season hurricane development." While the experts debate, Gulf and Atlantic coast residents should definitely be prepared. A forecast for an above or below average hurricane season is just an academic exercise if a community is hit.The animation is available at http://www.nasa.gov/mpg/186748main_sst_w_2007_dates_web.mpg Hurricane season ends on November 30. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
August 1, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070730092544.htm | Frequency Of Atlantic Hurricanes Doubled Over Last Century, Climate Change Suspected | About twice as many Atlantic hurricanes form each year on average than a century ago, according to a new statistical analysis of hurricanes and tropical storms in the north Atlantic. The study concludes that warmer sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and altered wind patterns associated with global climate change are fueling much of the increase. | The study, by Greg Holland of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Peter Webster of Georgia Institute of Technology, will be published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London."These numbers are a strong indication that climate change is a major factor in the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes," says Holland.The analysis identifies three periods since 1900, separated by sharp transitions, during which the average number of hurricanes and tropical storms increased dramatically and then remained elevated and relatively steady. The first period, between 1900 and 1930, saw an average of six Atlantic tropical cyclones (or major storms), of which four were hurricanes and two were tropical storms. From 1930 to 1940, the annual average increased to 10, consisting of five hurricanes and five tropical storms. In the final study period, from 1995 to 2005, the average reached 15, of which eight were hurricanes and seven were tropical storms.This latter period has not yet stabilized, which means that the average hurricane season may be more active in the future. Holland and Webster caution, however, that it is not possible at this time to predict the level at which the frequency and intensity of storms will stabilize.The increases over the last century correlate closely with SSTs, which have risen by about 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 100 years. The changes in SSTs took place in the years prior to the sharp increases in storm frequency, with an SST rise of approximately 0.7 degrees Fahrenheit leading up to 1930 and a similar rise leading up to 1995 and continuing even after. The authors note that other studies indicate that most of the rise in Atlantic SSTs can be attributed to global warming.The unusually active hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 have spurred considerable research into the question of whether more intense tropical cyclones are correlated with natural cycles, global warming, or some other cause. The new study indicates that natural cycles are probably not the entire cause because the increase has happened across the last century rather than oscillating in tandem with a natural cycle. The study also finds that enhanced observations in recent decades cannot account for all of the increase. To observe storms in the Atlantic more systematically, meteorologists began relying on data from aircraft flights in 1944 and satellites about 1970. The distinct transitions in hurricane activity noted by Holland and Webster occurred around both 1930 and 1995."We are of the strong and considered opinion that data errors alone cannot explain the sharp, high-amplitude transitions between the climatic regimes, each with an increase of around 50 percent in cyclone and hurricane numbers, and their close relationship with SSTs," the authors state.While the number of storms has steadily increased, the proportion of hurricanes to all Atlantic tropical cyclones has remained steady. Hurricanes have generally accounted for roughly 55 percent of all tropical cyclones. However, the proportion of major hurricanes (those with maximum sustained winds of at least 110 miles per hour) to less intense hurricanes and tropical storms has oscillated irregularly, and has increased significantly in recent years.The 2006 hurricane season was far less active than the two preceding years, in part because of the emergence of an El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean. However, that year, which was not included in the study, would have ranked above average a century ago, with five hurricanes and four other named storms."Even a quiet year by today's standards would be considered normal or slightly active compared to an average year in the early part of the 20th century," Holland says.The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under primary sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this release are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.Reference: Greg J. Holland and Peter J. Webster, "Heightened Tropical Cyclone Activity in the North Atlantic: Natural Variability or Climate Trend?", Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, July 30, 2007. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
July 26, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070724113927.htm | Hurricane Preparedness: One-third On High Risk Coast Will Refuse Evacuation Order, According To Survey | According to a new survey of people in high-risk hurricane areas conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security, one-third (31%) of residents said if government officials said they had to evacuate due to a major hurricane this season, they would not leave. This is an increase from 2006 when 23% said they would not evacuate. | The survey was conducted in eight states--Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas--and only included residents of counties within 20 miles of the coast. The poll included a special sample of the New Orleans metropolitan area. The top reasons people give for not evacuating involve issues of safety and security. Three-quarters (75%) say their home is well-built and they would be safe there. Over half (56%) feel that roads would be too crowded, and slightly more than one in three (36%) feels that evacuating would be dangerous. One-third (33%) worry that their possessions would be stolen or damaged while one in four (27%) say they would not evacuate because they do not want to leave their pets."Public officials need to be concerned that the further we get from the severe hurricanes of 2005, the less willing people are to evacuate," said Robert J. Blendon, Professor of Health Policy and Political Analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Officials need to remind people that many homes are vulnerable to major storms. They also need to ensure safe evacuation routes are available and the public is aware of them."These findings are based on interviews conducted June 18 - July 10, 2007 with 5,046 adults in high hurricane risk counties in eight states. If residents of high-risk hurricane areas have to evacuate because of a major hurricane, most would be concerned about the conditions of evacuation shelters if they had to go to one. The biggest worries people have are that shelters would be unsanitary (68%), there wouldn't be enough clean water to drink (66%), the shelter would be too crowded (65%), they would be exposed to sick people (62%), and medical care would be lacking (58%).Many residents of hurricane-prone areas have not made critical preparations for a major storm. If running water were cut off due to a hurricane, one in four (23%) would run out of clean water after two days, and over half (54%) would run out after six days. If power were shut off, one in ten (9%) would be without food after two days, and nearly half (44%) after six days. Hurricane Katrina showed that families can get separated and communication can break down in the aftermath of a major storm, but most residents have not prepared for that possibility. Two in three (66%) have not agreed on a meeting place if their family is separated, and one in two (49%) have not agreed on a phone number outside the region that family members could call. Of those who intend to evacuate and need help to do so (13%), half (50%) do not have that help lined up.Past experience with hurricanes has identified some critical information that people should know in order to be prepared for a storm. Many residents of high-risk areas were unaware of some key information. One out of three (34%) do not know if their home is located in an evacuation zone. Thirty-nine percent do not know the location of an evacuation center in their community where they could go if they had to. A large majority of people would be at risk of eating food that has spoiled due to a loss of refrigeration in a power outage. The USDA recommends that perishable food should not be eaten if refrigeration has been turned off for four hours. Only one in five (20%) knew that perishable food would be safe for just a few hours. One in three (36%) said that food is safe for up to one day, one in four (25%) said two days, and 16% said three or more days. In addition, one in five did not know that each household member requires at least one gallon of clean water per day, the amount recommended by the CDC.Nearly one-half (46%) of the respondents in the survey live in communities that were damaged by a hurricane during the past three years. The survey asked them about the problems they had during these hurricanes in order to identify issues that could be prevented in future hurricanes. The most common problem was getting gas to evacuate (35%). Twenty percent reported they did not have enough money at some point, 14% did not have enough water and 12% did not have enough food. Of note, smaller numbers reported needing medical care but not getting it (5%), getting injured (5%) or being threatened by violence (3%). One area where few people reported problems was getting the information they needed to keep themselves and their families safe (8%). The survey included a sample of the New Orleans metropolitan area to see if residents there differed from other high-risk area residents. After their experiences during Hurricane Katrina, most New Orleans residents say they would evacuate for a future storm. Only 14% would not evacuate compared to 32% of residents of other high-risk areas. Six in ten (61%) do not know the location of an evacuation shelter if they needed to go to one, which is significantly more than residents of other areas (38%). Despite the dramatic images of people stranded during Katrina, over half (54%) of New Orleans residents are confident they would be rescued if they needed to be during a future storm."It is worrisome that New Orleans, the site of one of the most severe hurricanes in U.S. history, has such a large proportion of people who don't know the location of an evacuation center," said Professor Blendon. "An important priority for government and voluntary agencies should be to inform people of the location of shelters well before a storm hits."Even after Katrina, a substantial percentage of New Orleans residents are not prepared for a major storm. One-half of New Orleans residents (51%) have not agreed on a place for family to meet if they get separated. Thirty-nine percent have not agreed on a phone number outside the region that family members could call. A sizable percentage of New Orleans residents (23%) do not have more than two days of water if the water supply were cut off. When asked to rate the response of government and voluntary agencies to the problems created by the last major hurricane, 78% percent of New Orleans residents said it was fair or poor compared to 39% of residents of other areas damaged by a hurricane. Only 19% of New Orleans residents said the response was excellent or good compared to 57% in other areas. Hurricane Katrina illustrated the additional challenges facing minorities and the poor in these high-risk coastal areas during a major hurricane. This survey finds that although African-Americans (73%) and Latino-Americans (71%) are more likely than whites (59%) to say they would evacuate if government officials said they had to leave in the event of a major hurricane, they are also more likely to need help to do so. Seventeen percent of African-Americans and 10% of Latino-Americans say they need help to evacuate and do not have that help lined up compared to 3% of whites (Figure 7). Low-income residents also would have more problems evacuating than those who are better off financially. Eighteen percent of those making less than $25,000 a year and who intend to evacuate do not have the necessary help compared to 4% of those making $25,000 a year or more. If minorities and low-income residents are unable to evacuate because they do not have help, they are less prepared to stay in their homes and weather the storm and its aftermath. Approximately one-third of African-Americans (32%), Latino-Americans (35%) and low-income residents (33%) say they are not prepared if a major hurricane were to strike their community in the next six months. This compares to 14% of whites and 19% of those making $25,000 a year or more. A greater percentage of African-Americans (18%), Latino-Americans (11%) and low-income residents (14%) do not have enough food on hand to last more than three days compared to whites (6%) and those making $25,000 a year or more (8%). This is the 25th in a series of studies by the Harvard School of Public Health Project on the Public and Biological Security. The study was designed and analyzed by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The project director is Robert J. Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health. The research team also includes Tami Buhr, John M. Benson, and Kathleen J. Weldon of the Harvard School of Public Health, and Melissa J. Herrmann of ICR/International Communications Research. Fieldwork was conducted via telephone for the Project by ICR/International Communications Research of Media (PA) between June 18 and July 10, 2007. The survey was conducted with a representative sample of 5,046 non-institutionalized adults ages 18 and over in high hurricane risk counties in eight states. Survey participants included residents of all counties within 20 miles of the coast in Alabama (503 interviews), Florida (1,006), Georgia (506), Louisiana (1,004), Mississippi (513), North Carolina (504), South Carolina (507), and Texas (503). The survey included 502 residents of the New Orleans metropolitan area, where interviews were conducted with adults from cellphone-only households, as well from households with landline telephones. The results were weighted to represent the total adult population in the high hurricane risk counties of the region as a whole. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points; for the New Orleans-area sample, plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.Possible sources of nonsampling error include nonresponse bias, as well as question wording and ordering effects. Nonresponse in telephone surveys produces some known biases in survey-derived estimates because participation tends to vary for different subgroups of the population. To compensate for these known biases, sample data are weighted to the most recent Census data available from the Current Population Survey for gender, age, race, education, as well as number of adults in the household. Other techniques, including random-digit dialing, replicate subsamples, callbacks staggered over times of day and days of the week, and systematic respondent selection within households, are used to ensure that the sample is representative. The complete survey and charts with figures are available at: State data is available here: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
July 19, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070718001520.htm | Increase In Creeping Vines Signals Major Shift In Southern US Forests | A new study of bottomland hardwood forests in the southeastern United States suggests that the increased growth of vines may change the landscape of these forests. | Researchers charting the growth of vines in two forests in South Carolina found up to a 10-fold increase in the number of vines in just two decades. Vines commonly found in both forests include grapevines, trumpet vine, poison ivy and Virginia creeper. Most of the vines use adhesive roots or tendrils to climb trees.The patterns observed in the south add to a growing number of studies that found similar patterns in temperate and tropical forests, said Bruce Allen, the study's lead author and a recent doctoral graduate of Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources.“Collectively, we're talking about an increase of more than 500 vine stems in 27 acres of forest area that we studied,” he said. “And all of the growth is within the last 10 to 20 years. Old photographs from the sites indicate there may have been fewer vines historically.“There are now so many vines that they're starting to change the makeup of the forest,” he continued. “It appears that as the number of vines increase, the density of small trees decreases at a fairly uniform rate.”Although the specific reasons for this shift aren't fully understood, Allen and his colleagues say possible mechanisms include increases in carbon dioxide concentrations, which have been shown to increase vine growth more than tree growth.“Many vines thrive on elevated levels of carbon dioxide,” he said. “Several studies suggest that vines like poison ivy benefit more than other plants from higher COThe findings appear in a recent issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management. Allen conducted the study with P. Charles Goebel, an associate professor of environment and natural resources at Ohio State, and with Rebecca Sharitz, a senior research ecologist at the University of Georgia 's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory in Aiken, S.C.The researchers collected 12 years' worth of data from six plots that each covered 2.5 acres – that's about the size of a football field – in an old-growth forest in South Carolina's Congaree National Park. They surveyed the plots every four years, beginning in late 1989. That was the same year that Hurricane Hugo struck the southeastern United States, killing an estimated 20 percent of the forest's trees.The researchers also surveyed five 2.5-acre plots in a second-growth forest – a forest that was partially logged about 100 years ago and has grown back – along the Savannah River and a major tributary, Upper Three Runs Creek. The Savannah River creates a natural border between South Carolina and Georgia.The researchers gathered data on vine growth in this protected forest every six to 10 years, beginning in 1979.Allen said that he wanted to see if there was any difference in vine density between the old growth and newer forest.During each survey session researchers would count the number of vine stems in each plot, identify new and dead stems, and look at vine growth from previous surveys.Vine density in the old-growth, Congaree forest nearly doubled within 12 years. Right after Hurricane Hugo, there were about 100 vines in each plot. By 2002, that average had increased to slightly more than 200 vines per plot. While the second-growth, Savannah River forest had fewer vines by the end of the study, the researchers calculated a 10-fold increase in the number of vines in this forest -- they counted an average of 10 vines per plot by the end of the study in the Savannah River forest. In 1979, researchers had found just one vine in all of the research plots.The five-fold difference in vine density between the two forests suggests that second-growth forests may be at more risk to threatening vine growth. Researchers wonder whether the steadily increasing growth in these forests will continue in the coming years. Unpublished data on vine growth in these forests gathered during the last four years suggests that this growth will continue. If it does, that could have an economic effect on the people who manage floodplain forests for timber.“Although there was a substantial difference in the number of vines in each forest, the increase in density at the Savannah River site represents a linear increase in the number of vines,” Allen said. “We would expect vine density to increase after a disturbance, such as a hurricane.“But to see such a clear, definitive increase at the undisturbed site along the Savannah River was unexpected, based on current models of floodplain forest development.”A few years ago, Allen and his colleagues published a study suggesting that increased vine growth equates to a decrease in tree growth.As the number of vines increase, their leaves fill a forest's canopy and essentially reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the forest floor. Some of the competing plants die because they can't get enough light.“The likely result is that more vines will grow on existing trees, and compete directly with tree seedlings,” Allen said. “A steady increase in vine numbers will likely influence the kind of trees that ultimately grow in these forests.”Still, Allen says it would take many lifetimes to completely change the look of the forests.“Both study sites lie in a floodplain and are often in the path of hurricane-force winds, so their landscape can change rapidly,” Allen said. “Data we've gathered from the Congaree forest shows a reduction in vine density after a hurricane. The winds wipe out many of the trees on which vines grow, thereby letting more light into the forest and also triggering a short-term increase in tree growth beneath the canopy.”This work received support from several agencies, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, Ohio State and the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 29, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070627114412.htm | Oceanographer Developing Next Generation Of Hurricane Forecast Tools | A University of Rhode Island oceanographer who helped develop an ocean-based hurricane forecast model that has been the most accurate hurricane prediction tool at the National Hurricane Center is completing work on an even better model that for the first time uses satellite technology to help predict a storm’s path, intensity and surge. | The next generation of hurricane models is being developed by URI Professor Isaac Ginis, in collaboration with scientists at the NOAA Centers for Environmental Prediction, to replace an earlier version used by the National Hurricane Center since 1995.“The new Hurricane Weather and Research Forecasting model will incorporate satellite data, as well as temperature data collected from instruments dropped from aircraft into the water at the eye of the storm, to create the first hurricane model that consolidates information from the air, sea and land,” said Ginis. “This new model has improved physics and numerics, allowing us to do a much better job of simulating the hurricane core at much higher resolution, which results in better forecasts.”While the accuracy of forecasting the path of a hurricane has improved dramatically over the years, little improvement has been made in accurately predicting hurricane intensity, according to Ginis. The new model is expected to greatly improve hurricane intensity predictions, while also becoming the first model to predict the storm surge and inland flooding associated with hurricanes.Ginis began work on the new model in 2006 and was recently awarded two grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to complete work on it and make it operational for the 2008 hurricane season.The URI researcher also received a grant from the U.S. Navy to adapt his original model, which was developed exclusively for use in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, to forecast typhoons in the Pacific Ocean.“The atmosphere is the same over the Pacific,” noted Ginis, “but the ocean is very different. It has different temperatures, geography and coastlines, so I’ll be incorporating a wide range of data specific to the Pacific region into the model for the Navy’s use.”The Korean Oceanographic Research Institute has also awarded Ginis a grant to adapt his model to the particular conditions of the Korean peninsula. A typhoon in 2001 devastated two major ports in Korea, and the government believes that better storm forecasts would have allowed the ports to be better prepared. Ginis said that the governments of Japan and Taiwan may also be interested in working with him to improve typhoon forecasts in the region.“The major challenge in the Pacific is to better understand the ocean dynamics there,” Ginis explained. “We need a great deal more data from the Pacific region, particularly observational data that is already available for the Atlantic but that hasn’t been collected in the Pacific.”Korean researchers will be collecting most of the necessary data.As for the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, Ginis believes that the Eastern Seaboard may be at greater risk for a hurricane this year.“We just finished an El Nino period, which results in fewer storms, but now we’re transitioning to La Nina, which favors storm development,” he said. “We’re overdue here in New England for a big storm. Category 3 storms strike our region about every 60 years, and the last one was Carol in 1954.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 23, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070622184644.htm | North Carolina Coastal Economy Vulnerable To Sea Level Rise | A new report finds that North Carolina’s coastline will continue to experience significant loss in land area, property and recreational value in the next 30 to 75 years due to projected changes in climate, leading North Carolina researchers announced. | The findings appear in the report “Measuring the Impacts of Climate Change on North Carolina Coastal Resources,” which assesses the impact of rising sea levels on property values, recreation and quality of life, and was conducted by researchers from Appalachian State University, East Carolina University, University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The study finds that:The study surveyed the counties of New Hanover, Dare, Carteret and Bertie. These four counties represent a cross-section of the North Carolina coastline in geographical distribution and economic development, according to the study. Researchers found that North Carolina’s coast is highly vulnerable to climate change, and looked at the economic impact global warming could have on its resources. They also considered how sea level rise would affect damage to property values, coastal recreation and tourism. According to current research, sea levels globally are expected to rise significantly during the next century. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that changes in the earth’s climate could raise global sea levels by one to more than two feet over the next 25 to 75 years. The researchers used the IPCC projections, along with county tax, recreation and travel, and fishing data to determine their findings.John Whitehead, a professor of economics at Appalachian State University, was lead author. Other contributors were Okmyung “Paul” Bin from East Carolina University’s Department of Economics and Chris Dumas from the Department of Economics and Finance at UNC Wilmington. Ben Poulter, formerly of Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences and now with the Department of Global Change and Natural Systems at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, assisted with computer modeling of the non-economic data used to generate the report. Whitehead looked at the impact that loss of beach width would have on fishing and recreational trips. “Anglers who like to catch saltwater fish but don’t own boats or have enough money for a charter boat rental have two options: They can fish off a pier or fish from the beach,” Whitehead said. “If the beach disappears, anglers can switch to the piers, which may become crowded and less enjoyable. People traveling to the beach for recreation won’t have a similar option.” By the year 2080, 14 of the 17 recreational swimming beaches in southern North Carolina could, without adaptation, erode all the way to the road, eliminating the possibility for beach recreation in those areas.As the beach diminishes, Whitehead said, people would spend less time and money at the coast as a result of the lost recreational opportunities. Using economic models, he estimated the lost economic value for southern North Carolina beaches would total $3.9 billion over the next 75 years. ECU’s Okmyung “Paul” Bin looked at the impact of sea level rise on property value. He found that losses of $6.9 billion could occur in just four North Carolina coastal counties during the next 75 years, without adaptation, with the most significant losses occurring in the vulnerable northern coastal counties.“The amount of developed property along the North Carolina coastline has steadily increased over the last several decades due to a strong preference for coastal locations,” Bin said. “The number of building permits in Carolina Beach during the last four years alone exceeds the number of permits issued over the previous 20 years, and the average selling price for residential properties in Wrightsville Beach has increased more than 200 percent since 2001. This growth, coupled with soaring property values in North Carolina, has created greater vulnerability to rising sea levels.”Depending on the sea level rise scenarios over the next 75 years, Bin found that the residential property value at risk in Dare County could range from $242 million to $2.7 billion, and the property value at risk in Carteret County would be between $26 million and $291 million. More protected New Hanover and Bertie counties would likely have smaller impacts. New Hanover County could have residential property value at risk between $37 million and $212 million, and Bertie County’s risk could range from $2 million to $7 million in property value. “These estimates focus on the loss of property value from permanent inundation,” Bin said. “Temporary inundation caused by high tides and storms occurs much sooner in time than permanent flooding, and the costs associated with it can be quite large relative to those associated with permanent flooding.”Increased storm severity would also impact the agriculture, forestry, commercial fisheries and general business sectors in these counties. UNC Wilmington economist Chris Dumas estimated that business interruption losses in New Hanover, Dare, Carteret and Bertie counties associated with an increase in Category 3 hurricanes would rise by $34 million per storm event by 2030, and by $157 million per storm event by 2080. Even if there were no increases in hurricane frequency through 2080, cumulative losses in the four counties could still exceed $1.4 billion when regional economic growth is considered. “Business interruption losses could be even larger if storm frequency increases, whether or not storm severity intensifies,” Dumas said. “Although current climate models could not predict storm frequency changes, if climate change were to cause an increase in storm frequency, we would expect more frequent flooding, evacuations, downed power lines – and larger economic impacts.”In addition to business interruption, increasing storm intensity would also have serious impacts on agriculture and forestry. Agricultural damage from hurricanes currently runs at about $50 million for a Category 1 hurricane, about $200 million for a Category 2 storm, and about $800 million for a Category 3. Any escalation of hurricane activity would significantly increase the amount of agricultural damage. Similarly, timber damage assessments indicate that an increase in hurricane severity from Category 2 to Category 3 can raise timber losses by about $900 million. Hurricane Fran, a Category 3 storm that made landfall in September 1996, damaged 44 percent of the commercial forest land along the northern coastal plan, an estimated $1.39 billion in lost timber. Although work is underway at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries to assess the impacts of hurricanes on North Carolina fisheries, it is still a work in progress. Results from limited case studies indicate that commercial fisheries suffer economic losses primarily in the form of damaged fishing gear and reduction in the number of safe fishing days. In addition, populations of some fish species may fall following hurricanes, further reducing fishing profitability. Climate change would likely increase these losses if storm severity or frequency escalates. “Coastal North Carolina has been identified as one of the United States most vulnerable regions to climate change,” Poulter said. “More than 2,000 square miles of North Carolina’s coastal ecosystems and urban areas are below one-meter elevation and within the range of projected sea level rise from climate change for the year 2100. This study demonstrates that, as climate change contributes to inundation, increased shoreline erosion and higher hurricane intensity, coastal economies will experience significant economic losses in the absence of mitigation and local adaptation.”Whitehead hopes the study will be used by policy makers to better understand the benefits of implementing climate change policy. “Usually, decision makers focus on one of two things: the benefits of a policy or the costs of a policy,” Whitehead said. “Right now, it seems that people are focusing on the costs of addressing climate change. The benefits of implementing climate change policy would occur further down the road, which makes them easier to ignore or postpone. We hope this study will help fill in some of the gaps in knowledge about this issue.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 22, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070620121247.htm | Kidney Specialists Review Plans For Disaster Response | Hurricane Katrina and other recent disasters have focused attention on the urgent need for planning to provide health services after natural disasters. Patients with end- stage renal failure pose special challenges, as any large-scale disaster is likely to interrupt the regular dialysis treatments they need to stay alive. | The July Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology presents an update on the nephrology community's efforts to meet the unique needs of people with kidney disease in the aftermath of disaster. Drawing on the experience of nephrologists who responded to Hurricane Katrina, recent earthquakes in Asia, and other disasters, four articles in the special section draw on past lessons to inform future plans for responding to future crises. The articles are preceded by an introduction from Dr. Paul Kimmel, highlighting the role of the ASN and other professional organizations in planning the response to disasters. Dr. Jeffrey Kopp of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and coauthors analyze the lessons of two historic 2005 disasters: Hurricane Katrina and other storms that wreaked havoc along the U.S. Gulf Coast and the devastating earthquake in Kashmir, South Asia. After Katrina, 94 dialysis facilities in the region were closed for a week or longer—including more than one-third of all centers in the state of Louisiana. The best guess is that of over 5,800 Gulf Coast dialysis patients affected by Katrina, 2.5 percent died in the month after the storm—although given the high mortality rate among dialysis patients, it is difficult to determine how many deaths were storm-related. The Kashmir earthquake offered different lessons, especially in terms of the risk of acute renal failure (ARF). This is a special concern in earthquakes or other causes of building collapse, because muscle damage from crush injuries can cause a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which can rapidly lead to ARF. In response to these disasters, the Kidney Community Emergency Response Coalition (KCERC) was formed, with representatives from over 50 governmental and private organizations. A second article by Dr. Kopp and colleagues outlines the KCERC's plans for responding to future emergencies that interrupt dialysis services.The recommendations focus on establishing "a timeline to safety" for dialysis patients: "If we accomplish specific tasks at each disaster stage, then it is likely that we can protect the health of these vulnerable patients," the authors conclude. They note that health care providers should "create an individualized disaster plan for each patient, and review the plan regularly with each patient." The KERC's approach may also help to guide disaster preparedness planning for other vulnerable populations.Dr. Robert J. Kenney of Renal Associates of Baton Rouge, LLC, focuses on the need for every dialysis center to develop a specific disaster plan, addressing issues like communication, which was one of the most critical challenges after Katrina; electrical and water supplies; and special patient populations, such as evacuees and children. "The lack of organization and miscommunication following Katrina prompted providers at all levels to ask just how prepared dialysis facilities are for future catastrophes," says Dr. Kenney. "We hope to stimulate physicians, dialysis facilities, and staff to familiarize themselves with emergency preparedness concepts while noting specific resources where more specific information can be obtained." Dr. Masafumi Fukagawa of Kobe University offers insights from the viewpoint of a renal physician in Japan, where various types of natural disasters—not only earthquakes and typhoons, but volcanic eruptions and tsunamis—are a threat. Drawing on the experience of the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake of 1995, Dr. Fukagawa emphasizes the need to reopen medical centers as soon as possible after a disaster. He also emphasizes the need for sharing experiences across generations, as people who haven't lived through them "forget" how severe such rare disasters can be. "My hope is to summarize preparedness not only for usual degrees of earthquakes, but also for unexpectedly severe earthquakes—once in a lifetime or in centuries," says Dr. Fukagawa. Dr. Kopp's work was supported by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health. NIH is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 21, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070619155735.htm | Home Shapes And Roofs That Hold Up Best In Hurricanes | Certain home shapes and roof types can better resist high winds and hurricanes, according to a researcher at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). Civil engineer Rima Taher, PhD, special lecturer in the New Jersey School of Architecture at NJIT. She spent two years examining the findings of research centers that have studied the best designs and construction materials and methods needed to withstand extreme wind events and hurricanes. | "Although I'd like to say that there is a simple and economical solution for housing that won't fail or collapse in the perfect storm, such information does not yet exist," said Taher. "However, it is obvious that thanks to the work of wind engineers and researchers that changes to home design and construction can make buildings safer for people, while saving government and industry billions of dollars annually.""Design of Low-Rise Buildings for Extreme Wind Events" (Journal of Architectural Engineering, March, 2007) by Taher highlighted such research findings. Wind researchers at the Center for Building Science and Technology (CSTB) in France, researched and tested reduced-scale home models at its wind tunnel facilities, and developed a prototype of a "cyclonic" or hurricane-resistant dwelling. Taher cooperated with the CSTB wind researchers, working on the structural aspect of the home's design. That design eventually became an elevated structure of a square plan form on an open foundation. The home had a hip roof and was equipped with a central shaft with aerodynamic features designed to reduce wind forces during an extreme wind event. Wind tunnel tests at CSTB showed that such a home would be far more efficient under high winds and hurricane conditions than a typical structure. CSTB is working with a builder to construct a prototype of such a home on Réunion in the West Indian Ocean. From this work and other studies Taher recommends the following construction considerations for homeowners in hurricane-prone regions. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 20, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070619125716.htm | Is Global Warming Causing An Increase In Hurricane Activity? | Following Hurricane Katrina and the parade of storms that affected the conterminous United States in 2004–2005, the apparent recent increase in intense hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin, and the reported increases in recent decades in some hurricane intensity and duration measures in several basins have received considerable attention. | An important ongoing avenue of investigation in the climate and meteorology research communities is to determine the relative roles of anthropogenic forcing (i.e., global warming) and natural variability in producing the observed recent increases in hurricane frequency in the Atlantic, as well as the reported increases of tropical cyclone activity measures in several other ocean basins. A survey of the existing literature shows that many types of data have been used to describe hurricane intensity, and not all records are of sufficient length to reliably identify historical trends. Additionally, there are concerns among researchers about possible effects of data inhomogeneities on the reported trends. Much of the current debate has focused on the relative roles of sea-surface temperatures or large-scale potential intensity versus the role of other environmental factors such as vertical wind shear in causing observed changes in hurricane statistics. Significantly more research – from observations, theory, and modeling – is needed to resolve the current debate around global warming and hurricanes. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 20, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070619125642.htm | New Tools Developed To Forecast Hurricane Rainfall Inland | All eyes are on where hurricanes make landfall, but the massive storms actually cause the most deaths inland, where severe flooding often surprises residents. | Now, researchers are learning how to predict where tropical storms and hurricanes will dump the most rain — even days after — and hundreds of miles away from — landfall.In a paper in the current issue of the journal Professional Geographer, Corene Matyas, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Florida, outlines new tools to predict how the storm’s intensity, distance it has moved inland and landscape topography alters its “rain shields” — the bands of heavy rain so visible in Doppler radar images. Among other things, her tools proved adept at modeling observations that when hurricanes or tropical storms encounter the Texas hill country or the Appalachian Mountains, their rain shields tend to line up in the same direction and with the same orientation as the underlying topography. “There are a lot of different things that can affect where the rainfall can occur in the storm and how heavy that rainfall will be,” Matyas said. “Our goal is to work toward predicting how those factors will determine the rainfall pattern.”Historically, hurricanes have proven most fatal at landfall, with coastal residents overcome by storm surge and high winds. But over the past four decades, forecasters have become more skilled at predicting hurricanes’ tracks over open water, enabling most coastal residents to flee or prepare for the storms well in advance.As a result, the highest proportion of hurricane and tropical fatalities has shifted inland. One study cited in the Matyas paper found 59 percent of deaths from tropical storms or hurricanes between 1970 and 1999 occurred because of heavy rainfall rather than wind or storm surge. As storms track inland, they inevitably ensnare more cities and towns. In 1998, Tropical Depression Charley left 20 people dead near Del Rio, Texas, more than 200 miles from where the storm made landfall, Matyas notes.Researchers are developing some models for forecasting inland rain patterns, but they have difficulty accounting for the lopsided or elongated shape the pattern often takes, with most if not all rain falling on one side of the storm. A common assumption is that rainfall will decrease as the hurricane moves away from the ocean, which is generally true but may be obviated by other weather systems and local landscape. Matyas’ goal was to find new tools to improve the models.She studied radar data from 13 U.S. storms that made landfall between 1997 and 2003, then used a common tool in geography — geographical information systems, or GIS — to measure how rainfall patterns changed. GIS is a computer system that makes it possible to analyze spatial patterns of data. It is often used to track things such as voting patterns, but using GIS in meteorology — where spatial patterns change — is relatively new, Matyas said.Matyas outlined the edge of the rain shields using radar data, then measured their shapes by calculating characteristics such as the position of their center of mass. She repeated the analysis for each hour that the storms were over land. She then used a statistical technique, discriminant analysis, to determine which shape and size best place the storms into groups based on their intensity, how far they travel inland and the topography they encounter. The success of the discriminant analyses indicates that these shape measures could serve as predictive tools for future rainfall models.In a demonstration of the potential, the shape measures helped to confirm that that the orientation of storms’ rain shields corresponds closely to the orientation of the land topography. With hurricanes crossing Texas hill country, the rain shields tend to line up parallel to the main axis of the hills, running west to east. Storms near the Appalachians also line up parallel to the mountains, whose axis runs southwest to northeast, with the heaviest rain consistently occurring to the west of the track. This is due to a combination of the mountains and a wedge of cold and dry continental air forcing the moist air upward, causing the water vapor to condense and fall to the ground as rain. This phenomenon does not happen with the Texas storms, as the dry continental air masses over Texas are similar in temperature to tropical moist air masses that accompany hurricanes.Frank Marks, a research meteorologist and director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division, said Matyas’ conclusions “have a lot of merit in terms of understanding the structure, size and shape of the rain shield.”He said the next step is to add rainfall amount to the variables. The end goal: a model that will provide inland residents with the same targeted advance warnings and watches that coastal residents get today — but for heavy rainfall rather than wind or storm surge. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 5, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604155742.htm | New Orleans Levee: Report Details What Went Wrong And Why In Hurricane Katrina | A report that recommends steps to reduce hurricane damage in New Orleans was released today by an expert engineering panel of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). | The 84-page report, “The New Orleans Hurricane Protection System: What Went Wrong and Why,” targets the public and policymakers, and complements and synthesizes the thousands of pages released so far by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during their post-Katrina investigation.Dr. Robert Gilbert, the risk expert on the ASCE panel and a civil engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin, noted that their risk analysis confirms the vulnerable nature of the city’s hurricane protection system. In the report, the panel estimated that despite the levees and floodwalls, New Orleans residents’ pre-Katrina risk was at a 1,000-fold higher rate than considered minimally acceptable for a major U.S. dam. “A thousand people died in New Orleans, and the system failed once in 40 years,” said the international risk assessment expert. “That’s way off the chart of acceptable risk if you compare the system to major U.S. dams, which have governmental oversight and must meet federal safety guidelines.” Determining the factors that directly or indirectly led to this high risk was a major goal of the ASCE panel as an essential step to help the city make informed decisions about the future.“Given the high risk, some very significant decisions need to be made about how New Orleans is going to be redeveloped and function in the future,” Gilbert said. “The risk of flooding should influence everything from how people are evacuated to where and how houses are re-built and land is re-developed. Building houses on ground that is 5 to 10 feet below sea level and assuming they will never get wet is nonsensical.”The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is expected in June to release its assessment of the inherent risk of the 350-mile, New Orleans’ hurricane protection system. As part of assessing the risk and making recommendations for future improvements, the panel considered factors that included- how inconsistencies in the features of the levees and floodwalls – including their varying heights and construction from erodible materials – resulted from their piecemeal development and disjointed oversight, and how this fed into the failure at 50 locations along the system during Hurricane Katrina;- how the hurricane protection system was under-designed to handle a major storm surge produced by hurricane winds that would reach New Orleans. No one had ever estimated the height of the surge likely to reach different points of the levee system using the standard benchmark – a major hurricane that would hit an average of every 100 years. Despite the importance of engineering improvements, Gilbert cautioned that fortification steps alone aren’t enough.“It isn’t just about improving the reliability of the levees and making them taller,” he said. “Spending federal money towards developing a way to evacuate people effectively is crucial, and very little emphasis has been put on this or on determining how to rebuild the city in a way that will keep people and property safe.”Relying only on levees isn’t the answer, Gilbert said, because upgrading them is expensive, and it’s difficult to anticipate the magnitude of future storms, which can impact a small portion of a levee system and have catastrophic consequences. He also noted that higher levees can create greater danger because of the higher wall of water that is released if they fail. “I’m hopeful that getting this report out into the public forum about all these challenges will help motivate the people involved in making tough decisions about the future of New Orleans to start doing so.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
June 1, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070531142524.htm | Tropical Cyclones Have Role In Climate-control | Purdue University researchers have found evidence that tropical cyclones and hurricanes play an important role in the ocean circulation patterns that transport heat and maintain the climate of North America and Europe. | These findings support a 2001 theory by Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and suggest that there is an additional factor to be included in climate models that may change predictions of future climate scenarios."It was thought that hurricanes occurred over too short of a time period and over too small of an area to affect the global system," said Matthew Huber, the Purdue University professor of earth and atmospheric sciences who led the research group. "This research provides evidence that hurricanes play an important role and may be one of the missing pieces in the climate modeling puzzle."The research also showed that hurricanes cool the tropics, forming in response to higher temperatures and acting as a thermostat for the area, Huber said."Warm water fuels hurricanes, which have been shown to leave cold water in their wake," said Huber, who also is a member of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center at Discovery Park. "I like to say the good news is that hurricanes function like a thermostat for the tropics, and the bad news is that hurricanes function like a thermostat for the tropics. The logical conclusion of this finding, taking into account past research into the impact of rising temperatures on cyclone and hurricane intensity, is that as the world and the tropics warm, there will be an increase in the integrated intensity of hurricanes." Movies such as "The Day After Tomorrow" brought into the spotlight information about the ocean conveyer belt and its impact on climate. The upper part of the conveyer belt travels from the south to the north, passing through the Pacific Ocean and Indian oceans and past warmer latitudes warming the water brought to North America and Europe, Huber said.In the tropical oceans, this pattern must be reversed; warm, buoyant water must be mixed downward, and cold, dense water must be mixed upward. This process, called vertical mixing, plays an important role in the conveyer belt's circulation. It was known that this mixing occurred, but the cause was not well-understood, said Ryan Sriver, the paper's lead author and a Purdue graduate student."Climate models today use what is called 'background mixing' to solve this problem," he said. "They represent the mixing as an average of the total amount that is needed and apply it over these regions consistently. However, we believe this mixing is not consistent; it is not everywhere all of the time. It is sporadic and happens over a small area for a limited amount of time."In some areas of the world, such as the equator, there are no cyclones, and no mixing occurs."If cyclones were added to models in place of the background mixing, there would be zero mixing at the equator," Huber said. "This is very important because it is well-known that to get El Niño right in a climate model, the background mixing at the equator must be greatly reduced. Our data has a beautiful no-mixing zone right where there should be no mixing." This explains some of the mystery of the observed temperatures from the distant past during a greenhouse climate. The poles were much warmer than today, about 82 degrees Fahrenheit, but the tropics were not much warmer than the present, he said."Using the best, most comprehensive models in existence, we could not obtain results that matched this past climate that we know existed," Huber said. "We knew a basic, fundamental process that cooled the tropics was missing from the models."The results of the study, being published in the May 31 issue of Nature, are consistent with providing all of the mixing necessary to match what is needed in climate models. "Our results suggest that this is the missing mixing and it is a vital part of ocean circulation," Huber said.Steven Jayne, an assistant scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, said Huber and Sriver present strong evidence for a cyclone-driven heat pump."It is remarkable how closely the amount of mixing generated by the cyclones and the location of this mixing matches what appears to be needed to improve climate models," Jayne said. "People suspected these connections, but no one had done the necessary detailed calculations. It means there may be another feedback loop in the climate system, and that is significant."Huber and Sriver studied the cooling effects of hurricanes from 1981 to the present using the cold wakes that follow a hurricane."These cold wakes can be easily observed," Sriver said. "The typical size is about 200 kilometers across and about 1,000 kilometers long, or about as big as the Eastern Seaboard." The researchers used surface temperature data during the cold wakes to obtain an estimate of the cooling in the tropics due to cyclones and hurricanes. The data analyzed was provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The team then examined the process that leads to this cooling and evaluated the ocean water mixing. "Multiple studies have shown that tropical cyclones are an excellent source of inertial oscillations, or internal waves that cause mixing in the upper layer of the ocean," Huber said. "It is like putting sugar in a cup of coffee. The sweetened coffee is more dense and will form a layer at the bottom of the cup. It needs to be stirred or agitated somehow to bring the sweet layer up to mix with the rest. The same thing is needed to mix ocean water. Dense water hangs out at bottom unless something stirs it up. Cyclones stir it up in addition to other processes."Tropical cyclones cause waves below the surface of the ocean that break, just like what can be seen on the beach shore. When the waves break, the top layer of water curls into the bottom layer and water of different densities and temperatures mix, Huber said."Warm, fresh water is less dense than cold, salty water, so the cold water sinks, and this drives the conveyer belt," Huber said. "However, cold, salty water rises in the Pacific, and there has been no complete explanation for this. Cyclones and hurricanes appear to pump warm water down and bring cold water to the surface. Mixing down buoyant, warm water lessens the density of the cold water and allows it to rise "The study did not examine deep ocean mixing, but it is reasonable to speculate that warm water pumped down joins the ocean circulation and becomes a part of the upper limb of the conveyer belt where dense water makes it up to the surface, Huber said.Huber and Sriver plan to incorporate their findings into a climate model for further testing."Current predictions are based on tropical ocean mixing remaining constant or decreasing with warmer temps," Huber said. "This evidence suggests the opposite is true, and upper ocean tropical mixing increases with warmer temperatures. This has major implications for oceanography and climate as a new factor that had not been included in previous predictions." The National Science Foundation and the Purdue Research Foundation funded this research. The Purdue Cyber Center and the Office of Information Technology at Purdue provided computational resources and support. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
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