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June 1, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070531102336.htm | Huge Wind Machine To Simulate Category Three Hurricanes | It will huff, and puff, and blow the house in — but only for research purposes. | Two days before the June 1 start of the 2007 hurricane season, University of Florida wind engineers unveiled the world’s largest portable hurricane wind and rain simulator. Mounted on a trailer, the industrial-sized behemoth is composed of eight 5-foot-tall industrial fans powered by four marine diesel engines that together produce 2,800 horsepower. To cool the engines, the system taps water from a 5,000-gallon tank aboard a truck that doubles as the simulator’s tow vehicle.UF civil and coastal engineers plan to use the simulator to blast vacant homes with winds of up to 130 mph — Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale — and high-pressure water jets that mimic wind-driven torrential rain.The goal: to learn more about exactly how hurricanes damage homes, and how to modify them to best prevent that damage.“We want to conduct experiments to evaluate real homes in communities that are impacted by hurricanes,” said Forrest Masters, an assistant professor of civil and coastal engineering and the leader of the project. “This simulator also gives us the ability to test home retrofits and new building products aimed at preventing hurricane damage.”The simulator, which cost about $500,000 in parts and labor, was designed and constructed entirely by Masters, lab manager Jimmy Jesteadt and a team of undergraduate students. It is one of a kind.Unlike previous, smaller simulators, the new simulator uses an innovative hydraulic system, rather than chains or mechanical drive trains, to transfer power from the engines to the fans. Designed by Linde Hydraulics Corporation and Cunningham Fluid Power Inc., the engines spin pumps, which then drive fluid through motors housed in the fans. The result is lighter, less bulky and safer than traditional drive systems, Masters said.At full power, the fans turn at about 1,800 revolutions per minute, producing wind speeds of about 100 mph. A custom-built duct reduces the space available for the air to flow through, ratcheting up the wind speeds to a potential 130 mph. Steering vanes allow the engineers to direct the air wherever they want it to blow.Implanted in the vanes, the water jets can simulate the most extreme rainfall of up to 35 inches per hour, although 8 inches per hour is more typical, Masters said.The simulator is the latest addition to a growing arsenal of hurricane research equipment designed and assembled by UF wind engineering researchers trying to learn more about ground-level hurricane winds and how they affect structures. In a related project, the researchers built several portable hurricane wind monitoring towers that were deployed in the path of land-falling hurricanes in recent years.“When this program first started, we brought the lab to the hurricane,” Masters said. “Now, we’re bringing the hurricane back to the lab.”Rick Dixon, executive director of the Florida Building Commission, said state officials began to tap UF research for help in strengthening the state’s hurricane-related building codes shortly after Hurricane Andrew in 1992.The 2004 storms showed that while improved codes were effective in preventing catastrophic building failures, challenges remained in blocking wind and water intrusion, he said. It will take more research to learn how to protect windows, doors, soffits, roof coverings and other so-called “components and claddings” – research for which the new wind simulator will be pivotal, he said.“The test facility that Forrest has built allows us to evaluate those components and claddings and determine where they are failing,” he said. “So if the building code establishes minimum performances, than that can give us new standards for upgrading the building code.” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 27, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070523153030.htm | El Nino And African Monsoon Have Strongly Influenced Intense Hurricane Frequency In The Past | The frequency of intense hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean appears to be closely connected to long-term trends in the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the West African monsoon, according to new research from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Geologists Jeff Donnelly and Jonathan Woodruff made that discovery while assembling the longest-ever record of hurricane strikes in the Atlantic basin. | Donnelly and Woodruff began reconstructing the history of land-falling hurricanes in the Caribbean in 2003 by gathering sediment-core samples from Laguna Playa Grande on Vieques (Puerto Rico), an island extremely vulnerable to hurricane strikes. They examined the cores for evidence of storm surges—distinctive layers of coarse-grained sands and bits of shell interspersed between the organic-rich silt usually found in lagoon sediments—and pieced together a 5,000-year chronology of land-falling hurricanes in the region. In examining the record, they found large and dramatic fluctuations in hurricane activity, with long stretches of frequent strikes punctuated by lulls that lasted many centuries. The team then compared their new hurricane record with existing paleoclimate data on El Niño, the West African monsoon, and other global and regional climate influences. They found the number of intense hurricanes (category 3, 4, and 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale) typically increased when El Niño was relatively weak and the West African monsoon was strong.“The processes that govern the formation, intensity, and track of Atlantic hurricanes are still poorly understood,” said Donnelly, an associate scientist in the WHOI Department of Geology and Geophysics. “Based on this work, we now think that there may be some sort of basin-wide ‘on-off switch’ for intense hurricanes.”Donnelly and his colleagues have pioneered efforts to extend the chronology of hurricane strikes beyond what can be found in historical texts and modern meteorological records and previously applied their methods to the New England and the Mid-Atlantic coasts of the United States. Their research area, Laguna Playa Grande, is protected and separated from the ocean during all but the most severe tropical storms. However, when an intense hurricane strikes the region, storm surges carry sand from the ocean beach over the dunes and into Laguna Playa Grande. Such “over-topping” events leave markers in the geological record that can be examined by researchers in sediment core samples.The geological record from Vieques showed that there were periods of more frequent intense hurricanes from 5,000 to 3,600 years ago, from 2,500 to 1,000 years ago, and from 1700 AD to the present. By contrast, the island was hit less often from 3,600 to 2,500 years ago and from 1,000 to 300 years ago. To ensure that what they were seeing was not just a change in the direction of hurricanes away from Vieques—that is, different storm tracks across the Atlantic and Caribbean—the scientists compared their new records with previous studies from New York and the Gulf Coast. They saw that the Vieques record matched the frequency of land-falling hurricanes in New York and Louisiana, indicating that some Atlantic-wide changes took place.Donnelly and Woodruff, a doctoral student in the MIT/WHOI Joint Graduate Program, then decided to test some other hypotheses about what controls the strength and frequency of hurricanes. They found that periods of frequent El Niño in the past corresponded with times of less hurricane intensity. Other researchers have established that, within individual years, El Niño can stunt hurricane activity by causing strong winds at high altitudes that shear the tops off hurricanes or tip them over as they form. When El Niño was less active in the past, Donnelly and Woodruff found, hurricane cycles picked up.The researchers also examined precipitation records from Lake Ossa, Cameroon, and discovered that when there were increased monsoon rains, there were more frequent intense hurricanes on the other side of the Atlantic. Researchers have theorized that frequent and stronger storms over western Africa lead to easterly atmospheric waves moving into the Atlantic to provide the “seedlings” for hurricane development.Much media attention has been focused recently on the importance of warmer ocean waters as the dominant factor controlling the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. And indeed, warmer sea surface temperatures provide more fuel for the formation of tropical cyclones. But the work by Donnelly and Woodruff suggests that El Niño and the West African monsoon appear to be critical factors for determining long-term cycles of hurricane intensity in the Atlantic.Donnelly and Woodruff published their latest results in the May 24 issue of the journal Nature. The research by Donnelly and Woodruff was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Risk Prediction Initiative, the National Geographic Society, the WHOI Coastal Ocean Institute, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 24, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070523095948.htm | Ten Counties In Florida, Eight In N.C. Among Top 20 At Risk For Storms And Hurricanes, Experts Say | Much of the nation's Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastlines face substantially higher-than-normal risks for hurricanes in 2007, according to an analysis by a University of Central Florida researcher and his Georgia colleague. | Nationally, Carteret County on the North Carolina coastline has the highest probability of hurricane-force winds in 2007 at 22.4 percent, according to the analysis by UCF statistics professor Mark Johnson and Chuck Watson, a Georgia researcher who founded the Kinetic Analysis Corp. of Silver Spring, Md.Louisiana's Terrebonne Parish is second at 21.2 percent. St. Lucie and Martin counties in Florida rank third and fourth, respectively, at 20.8 percent and 20.7 percent. Charleston County, S.C., and Indian River County, Fla., tied for fifth at 20.1 percent.Johnson and Watson based their analysis on statistical models that incorporate the paths of storms from the past 155 years, along with models using the actual climate conditions for January through May 2007 that compute the expected global climate conditions for the rest of the year. The researchers have worked together for 10 years on probability analyses for hurricanes and have released their projections for the past eight years.Johnson is an expert in the statistical aspects of hurricane modeling and forecasting. Watson specializes in developing hazard models based on engineering and geophysics. They collaborate on a Web site, "Because so much of the U.S. and Florida coastlines are at higher risks for hurricanes, residents need to prepare carefully for the upcoming storm season," Johnson said. "Residents also should expect gas prices to potentially climb higher if the expected disruptions to Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production materialize in 2007."The combination of La Niña weather conditions that are expected to develop throughout the summer and warmer-than-normal Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean temperatures increase the chances of hurricanes and disruptions in oil and gas production.Of the 852 counties included in the analysis, the probability of hurricane-force winds (74 mph or greater) this year is 15 percent or greater in 61 counties. In an average year, only six counties face probabilities of at least 15 percent.The 20 counties with the highest probabilities for hurricane-force winds include 10 in Florida, eight in North Carolina, one in Louisiana and one in South Carolina.To develop estimates for oil-and-gas production, the researchers operate a computer model that includes every oil platform, pipeline, refinery and terminal in the Gulf of Mexico. The model simulated how every storm since 1851 would have affected oil and gas infrastructure based on 2007 locations.In those simulations, at least one week's worth of production in the Gulf has been disrupted in 98 percent of the years with La Niña conditions. Johnson and Watson have developed maps to support local mitigation strategies for the State of Florida, developed data for Caribbean governments in an effort funded by the Organization of American States and researched hurricane damage models used in the insurance industry. Watson is assisting the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and Watson and Johnson are actively working on research on the potential impact of climate change on hurricanes and hurricane damage frequencies.They also have worked as consultants to the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology, which reviews and accepts public and private hurricane insurance models. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 23, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070522182802.htm | NOAA Predicts Above Normal 2007 Atlantic Hurricane Season | Experts at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center are projecting a 75 percent chance that the Atlantic Hurricane Season will be above normal this year—showing the ongoing active hurricane era remains strong. With the start of the hurricane season upon us, NOAA recommends those in hurricane-prone regions to begin their preparation plans. | "For the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA scientists predict 13 to 17 named storms, with seven to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which three to five could become major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher," said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. An average Atlantic hurricane season brings 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes. Climate patterns responsible for the expected above normal 2007 hurricane activity continue to be the ongoing multi-decadal signal (the set of ocean and atmospheric conditions that spawn increased Atlantic hurricane activity), warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean and the El Niño/La Niña cycle.Last year, seasonal hurricane predictions proved to be too high when an unexpected El Niño rapidly developed and created a hostile environment for Atlantic storms to form and strengthen. When storms did develop, steering currents kept most of them over the open water and away from land."There is some uncertainty this year as to whether or not La Niña will form, and if it does how strong it will be," said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. "The Climate Prediction Center is indicating that La Niña could form in the next one to three months. If La Niña develops, storm activity will likely be in the upper end of the predicted range, or perhaps even higher depending on how strong La Niña becomes. Even if La Niña does not develop, the conditions associated with the ongoing active hurricane era still favor an above-normal season." Bell also noted that pre-season storms, such as Subtropical Storm Andrea in early May, are not an indicator of the hurricane season ahead. "With or without Andrea, NOAA's forecast is for an above normal season.""With expectations for an active season, it is critically important that people who live in East and Gulf coastal areas as well as the Caribbean be prepared," said Bill Proenza, NOAA National Hurricane Center director. "Now is the time to update your hurricane plan, not when the storm is bearing down on you."The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30, with peak activity occurring August through October. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center will issue an updated seasonal forecast in August just prior to the historical peak of the season.The Atlantic Hurricane Seasonal Outlook is an official forecast product of the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. Instituted in 1998, this outlook is produced in collaboration with NOAA scientists at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center, NOAA National Hurricane Center, NOAA Hurricane Research Division and the NOAA Hydrometeorological Prediction Center. The NOAA National Hurricane Center has hurricane forecasting responsibilities for the Atlantic as well as the East Pacific basins. The NOAA Climate Prediction Center, NOAA National Hurricane Center and the NOAA Hydrometeorological Prediction Center are three of the NOAA National Weather Service's nine NOAA National Centers for Environmental Prediction, which provides the United States with first alerts of weather, climate, ocean and space weather events.NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA 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 the 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 60 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 | 2,007 |
May 18, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070517120157.htm | Hurricane Monitoring System Improved In US | Forecasters will test a new technique this summer that provides a detailed 3-D view of an approaching hurricane every six minutes and allows them to determine whether the storm is gathering strength as it nears land. The technique, developed by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), relies on the existing network of Doppler radars along the Southeast coast to closely monitor hurricane winds. | "With this technique, meteorologists for the first time will be able to monitor the strength of a hurricane every few minutes as it approaches landfall and quickly alert coastal communities if it suddenly intensifies or weakens," says NCAR scientist Wen-Chau Lee.The technique is known as VORTRAC, which stands for Vortex Objective Radar Tracking and Circulation.VORTRAC uses the Doppler radar network established by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the 1980s and 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 a 3-D picture of hurricane winds before now.Lee and his collaborators 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 winds in three dimensions. The technique also infers the barometric pressure in the eye of the hurricane, a very reliable index of its strength.Forecasters using VORTRAC can update information about a hurricane each time a NOAA 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.Because of the limited range of Doppler radars, VORTRAC works only for hurricanes that are within about 120 miles of land. Depending on a hurricane's speed, that could enable forecasters to monitor it for the critical 10-15 hours or so before landfall. The National Hurricane Center will test VORTRAC during this year's hurricane season, which officially starts on June 1.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. In 2004, parts of Florida's southwest coast were caught by surprise 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 Hurricane Charley. In a recent article in Geophysical Research Letters, they reported that the technique would have accurately captured the burst in the hurricane's intensity."Our research shows that this technique can capture sudden intensity changes in potentially dangerous hurricanes," says NCAR scientist Michael Bell, a coauthor of the article.In time, VORTRAC may also help improve long-range hurricane forecasts by using data from airborne 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.The research was funded primarily by the National Science Foundation and NOAA. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 17, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070516071603.htm | Post-traumatic Stress Disorder 10 Times Higher In New Orleans Than In The General Public | Hurricane Katrina was the most significant natural disaster to strike the United States. Thousands of people were exposed to destruction, human violence and desperate circumstances. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was likely to be a significant medical issue in the aftermath of Katrina. | In a paper to be presented at the 2007 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Annual Meeting, Professor Lisa D. Mills, MD, Director, Section of Emergency Medicine Ultrasound, Louisiana State University at New Orleans, will show that PTSD was diagnosed in over 38% of the people who came to an interim Emergency Department facility in New Orleans. This is more than ten times higher than the 3.6% prevalence in the general US population. Loss of a loved one and simply staying in New Orleans during the storm were associated with PTSD symptoms.Commenting on this study, Dr. Peter DeBlieux, MD, Director of Emergency Services at Louisiana State University in New Orleans, states, "The incidence of PTSD in our population post-Katrina reported in this research study is noteworthy and worth following as recovery efforts move forward. The prevalence cited in this study is not alarming to those professionals caring for patients who have been traumatized by the storm and challenged by the recovery efforts."The magnitude and duration of even a single mental health care diagnosis after this disaster demonstrates the need for long term, coordinated mental health response as part of disaster relief. Interim or temporary mental health response is not adequate for this population. The presentation is entitled "Prevalence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Following Hurricane Katrina" by Lisa D. Mills MD and Trevor J. Mills MD. This paper will be presented at the 2007 SAEM Annual Meeting, May 16-19, 2007, Chicago, IL on Friday, May 18th, in the Psychiatry poster session beginning at 9:00 AM in the River Exhibition Hall A & B of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. Abstracts of the papers presented are published in Volume 14, Issue 5S, the May 2007 supplement of the official journal of the SAEM, Academic Emergency Medicine. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 15, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070514132538.htm | Eye Of The Hurricane Reveals A New Power Source | In the eye of a furious hurricane, the weather is often quite calm and sunny. But new NASA research is providing clues about how the seemingly subtle movement of air within and around this region provides energy to keep this central "powerhouse" functioning. | Using computer simulations and observations of 1998's Hurricane Bonnie in southern North Carolina, scientists were able to get a detailed view of pockets of swirling, warm humid air moving from the eye of the storm to the ring of strong thunderstorms in the eyewall that contributed to the intensification of the hurricane. The findings suggest that the flow of air parcels between the eye and eye wall - largely believed trivial in the past - is a key element in hurricane intensity and that there's more to consider than just the classic "in-up-and-out" flow pattern. The classic pattern says as air parcels flow "in" to the hurricane's circulation, they rise "up," form precipitating clouds and transport warm air to the upper atmosphere before moving "out" into surrounding environmental air."Our results improve understanding of the mechanisms that play significant roles in hurricane intensity," said Scott Braun, research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The spinning flow of air parcels - or vortices - in the eye can carry very warm, moist eye air into the eyewall that acts as a turbocharger for the hurricane heat engine." The research appears in the June 2007 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. "While the 'in-up-and out' pattern has been the prevailing paradigm for the past five decades, when you closely examine intense hurricanes it's apparent that a second family of moist air parcels often travels from the border of the eyewall to the eye, where it picks up moisture from the ocean surface," said co-author Michael Montgomery, professor of meteorology at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif. "These moisture-enriched air parcels then rather quickly return to the main eyewall and collectively raise the heat content of the lower eyewall cloud, similar to increasing the octane level in auto fuel."The researchers analyzed thousands of virtual particles to track the movement of air between the eye and eyewall, and between the eyewall and its outside environment. To uncover the impact of these particles on storm intensity, they used a simulation of Hurricane Bonnie from a sophisticated computer model and data gathered during the NASA Convection and Moisture Experiment (CAMEX). The simulation has also helped to explain the formation of deep "hot towers" observed in Bonnie and many other hurricanes by NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. TRMM carries the first and only space-based precipitation radar that allows researchers to peer through clouds and get a 3-D view of storm structure. It captured a particularly deep hot tower in Bonnie as the storm intensified several days before striking North Carolina. Hot towers are deep, thick clouds that reach to the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere, usually about ten miles high in the tropics. The updrafts within these "towers" act like express elevators, accelerating the movement of energy that boosts hurricane strength, and are called "hot" because of the large amount of latent heat they release as water vapor is condensed into cloud droplets. Deep hot towers in the eyewall are usually associated with a strengthening storm. In previous research, Braun, Montgomery, and Zhaoxia Pu of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, found a direct relationship between these deep hot towers and the intense vortices inside the eye. "The vortices were shown to be especially crucial in providing the focus and lift needed for hot tower formation and add insight into when and where hot towers will develop in storms," said Braun. The study was published in the January 2006 CAMEX special issue of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. Vortices are created in response to the rapid change in wind speed from the fierce eyewall to the calm eye. Near the surface, air spiraling inward collides with these vortices to force air up, forming updrafts. Strong updrafts in the eyewall carry moisture much higher than normal and help create hot towers. The current study suggests that in addition to providing lift, these vortices also feed high energy air from the low-level eye into the eyewall, boosting the strength of the updrafts. This transfer of energy allows the storm to remain stronger than expected, particularly when encountering weakening influences, including cooler ocean water temperatures and wind shear, the change in the direction and speed of winds with altitude. "This discovery may help explain why strong storms can remain intense for several hours or longer after encountering conditions that usually bring weakening," said Montgomery. "Ongoing research will add to our understanding of the dynamics associated with storm intensity so that we can pinpoint the variables and processes that must be represented in numerical models to improve intensity forecasts."When hurricane Bonnie finally began to lose strength a couple days before landfall, a significant amount of air in the eyewall was traced back - not to the eye - but to the middle levels of the atmosphere away from the storm. This inflow was caused by wind shear and brought much cooler, drier environmental air into Bonnie's circulation, acting like an anti-fuel to reduce energy in the storm and weaken its strong winds.Despite these and other recent advances in understanding the internal workings of hurricanes, forecasting their intensity is still a significant challenge. "Most of today's computer models that aid forecasters cannot sufficiently account for the extremely complex processes within hurricanes, and model performance is strongly dependent on the information they are given on the structure of a storm," said Braun. "We also typically only see small parts of a storm at a given time. That is why it is important to combine data from field experiments such as CAMEX with data from TRMM and other satellites. As observing technologies and models improve, so too will forecasts." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 4, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070503111503.htm | Fecal Microbes High In New Orleans Sediments Following Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, According To Study | In a new study documenting the microbial landscape of New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, scientists report that sediments in interior portions of the city appear to be contaminated with fecal microbes, a chronic condition they say persisted in the area before the hurricanes, and that the resulting water quality in the city and in nearshore waters of the lake continues to be impacted by discharges from this contamination. | According to the study authors, including Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Assistant Research Scientist, Dr. Linda Amaral Zettler, while floodwaters pumped from New Orleans back into Lake Ponchartrain following the Hurricanes showed higher-than-normal levels of bacteria and pathogens, fecal indicator microbe and pathogen concentrations in the lake returned to pre-hurricane levels within two months. However, the sediments left behind in the flooded regions of the city appear to contain microbes commonly found in sewage treatment and remain a cause for concern because they may serve as a potential source of ongoing microbial exposure. The report maintains that further investigation is needed to evaluate the microbial quality of floodwater sediments deposited in the New Orleans area and highly recommends epidemiologic studies to determine whether there is an elevated risk of exposure to human pathogens through contact, ingestion, and inhalation of these sediments.The study was a collaborative response of several institutions, including the Woods Hole Center for Oceans and Human Health, of which the MBL and Amaral Zettler are a part. The researchers began collecting water and sediment samples from the interior canals and shoreline of New Orleans and the offshore waters of Lake Pontchartrain in October 2005 after the floodwaters had receded. They examined the presence of a diverse group of microbes including fecal indicators E.coli and others,as well as human pathogenic bacteria Vibrio and Legionella. Amaral Zettler and her colleagues at the MBL led the effort to analyze overall microbial diversity in the post-hurricane water and sediment samples using DNA sequencing technology. Through analyzing the DNA makeup of the microbes found, they were able to get a big picture view of the kinds of microbes in the environment and whether or not they were similar in makeup to known pathogens or to microbes typically found in sewage treatment. Amaral Zettler points out the importance of knowing the microbial landscape of an area before a natural disaster hits. Some pathogens are endemic to the natural environment and some are introduced through sewage and run-off. Likewise, microbial communities are under the influence of seasonal variability in temperature and salinity that will naturally affect microbial population structure. "Our hope is that this data will provide some perspective not just on the immediate impact to the area, but the long term effects of this kind of natural disaster," says Amaral Zettler. "We certainly know a lot more now about the microbial diversity present in Pontchartrain than we did when we started the study."According to Amaral Zettler, the Centers for Oceans and Human Health network enabled the team to mobilize quickly. The logistics of sampling were tremendous," she says. "Security was huge and the logistics of just getting around the city at that time were not trivial," she says. A collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation made it possible for the scientists to leverage their expertise and use their resources to contribute to a common goal. "We really felt that as centers we were serving a role. This research would have been next to impossible if we would have had to go it alone--a true example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts."This work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Ocean and Human Health Program, and the NSF Small Grant for Exploratory Research Program, the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program, and by the Georgia Sea Grant College Program. Article: "Impacts of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita on the Microbial Landscape of the New Orleans Area" published in the online Early Edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
May 4, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070501115144.htm | Hurricane Prediction Should Improve With New Computer Model | Aided by new observations from the Coupled Boundary Layer Air-Sea Transfer (CBLAST) – Hurricane field program, scientists at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have helped to develop and test a new, high-resolution computer model to better understand how air-sea interactions directly affect hurricane intensity, a factor not yet possible in the current operational forecast models. | The research, which is featured in the March 2007 issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS), explains that current predictive models used in forecasting hurricane formation and intensity have difficulty accurately representing data such as ocean temperature, surface wind, rain and waves, and pressure and wind-speed relationships. A new fully coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean modeling system is capable of forecasting detailed hurricane inner-core structure, as well as surface temperature and wind, ocean currents, and surface waves that are crucial for improving hurricane intensity forecasts. The CBLAST – Hurricane field program was conducted from 2002 to 2004 using NOAA's “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft, as well as drifting buoys and subsurface floats deployed ahead of Hurricanes Fabian in 2003, and Frances in 2004. Dr. William Drennan, associate professor of applied marine physics and one of the scientists who participated in the fieldwork, has helped to provide an unprecedented amount of information about how variations in ocean and sea surface conditions can accelerate or inhibit the intensification of hurricanes. “Measuring processes near the sea-surface in hurricanes is a challenge! The CBLAST field program which brought together many new ideas and techniques has provided a wealth of new data that will help us to improve our understanding of how hurricanes gain and lose energy,” Drennan said Rosenstiel scientist Dr. Shuyi Chen, a professor of meteorology and physical oceanography, led CBLAST's Hurricane modeling effort. She and other scientists have developed a fully coupled atmosphere-wave-ocean, high-resolution model able to predict the structure of a hurricane eye and eyewall at nearly a 1-km resolution, which is well within the recommendation for next-generation hurricane-prediction models set by the NOAA Science Advisory Board Hurricane Intensity Research Working Group. “Extreme high winds, intense rainfall, large surface waves, strong ocean currents, and copious sea spray in hurricanes are all difficult to measure, limiting our capability in predicting their effects on hurricane intensity. The new coupled model takes into account the fully interactive nature of the atmosphere and ocean in tropical storms and represents an important first step toward developing the next-generation hurricane prediction models,” Chen said. The effect of air-sea interactions on hurricane structure and intensity change is the main focus of the CBLAST – Hurricane program. The new, high-resolution model for hurricane research and prediction is a fully integrative modeling system, taking advantage of the new observations from the CBLAST field program to account for data from three important aspects of hurricane modeling. The overall modeling system is comprised of an atmospheric model, a surface wave model, and an ocean circulation model, all of which combine to form an innovative way of modeling storms. CBLAST – Hurricane modeling and observation efforts were sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and involved many scientists from numerous universities as well as from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). “It is one of the most comprehensive studies ever of the way the ocean and atmosphere interact in hurricanes, offering the scientific community new pathways in modeling and observation that will lead to further predictive modeling progress. Improved weather forecasting will have global impacts; helping every nation affected by hurricanes and typhoons,” said Dr. Linwood Vincent, Acting Head of the Ocean, Atmosphere and Space Research Division of ONR. The 2005 Hurricane season highlighted the urgent need for better understanding of the factors that contribute to hurricane formation and intensity change, and for developing future predictive models to improve intensity forecasts. Scientists are hoping that with improved predictive science will come better preparation and warning for areas affected by tropical storms. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 24, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070423100903.htm | How To Manage Forests In Hurricane Impact Zones | Forest Service researchers have developed an adaptive strategy to help natural resource managers in the southeastern United States both prepare for and respond to disturbance from major hurricanes. In an article published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, John Stanturf, Scott Goodrick, and Ken Outcalt from the Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Athens, GA, report the results of a case study based on the effects of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. | The past 10 hurricane seasons have been the most active on record, with climatologists predicting that heightened activity could continue for another 10 to 40 years. In early April, Colorado State University meteorologists predicted a very active 2007 hurricane season for the Atlantic coast, with 17 named storms, including 5 major hurricanes. The analysis included a 74 percent probability of a major hurricane hitting the U.S. coast before the season ends on November 30. "Coastal areas in the southern United States are adapted to disturbance from both fire and high wind," says Stanturf, project leader of the SRS disturbance ecology unit based in Athens, GA. "But those adaptations only go so far in the face of a major hurricane. Forest owners and natural resource managers need strategies to deal with hurricane damage to coastal forests."In early fall 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita caused what may be the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history, with over 5.5 million acres of timberland in the coastal states of Texas , Lousiana , Mississippi , and Alabama affected. Using available data on the damage from these storms, the researchers constructed an adaptive strategy that distinguishes event risk (hurricane occurrence) from the vulnerability of coastal forests and outcome risk (hurricane severity). "There really isn't any way for managers to reduce the risk of a hurricane occurring or the severity of a hurricane when it hits," says Stanturf. "The long-term focus of managers should be on reducing the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems, particularly in those areas with higher event risk." The researchers developed an approach that considers all the potential disturbances in an area--the threat matrix--then assesses the risks of severe hurricanes within this context. Activities following a hurricane event are divided into those dealing with immediate outcomes (short-term) and those managing the recovery (long-term). "If disturbances such as major hurricanes are in the threat matrix of an area, policies and procedures should be in place to manage effects," says Stanturf. "The infrastructure to restore access and communication should be put into place before the storm hits to meet both the short-term goals of salvage and fire prevention and the long-term goal of reforestation and ecological recovery."Stanturf and fellow authors use the case study of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to illustrate the major decisions and actions that must be taken after a major event. These include rapid assessment of damage, protection of timber resources and recovery of value, management of second order events such as wildfire, protection of other resources such as endangered plants and animals, and best practices for proceeding with salvage."Stands within a hurricane damage zone that are not salvaged will require monitoring for up to 5 years to detect delayed mortality or the onset of insect infestations or diseases," says Stanturf. "Beyond the initial flurry of cleanup and salvage logging, the recovery process will take many years, and require the investment of time and resources. The recovery period is a good time to look at how to reduce the vulnerability of forests."Vulnerability can be lessened by converting to species that are less susceptible to hurricane damage, by controlling stand structure, and by dispersing harvesting and thinning operations. The authors simulated the potential damage to 9 theoretical stands of pine trees, looking at how each would react to hurricane wind speeds, to make recommendations for different situations."Our simple simulation of stem breakage potential suggests that stand spacing and tree height can be manipulated to reduce risk, and provides a start for managing forests for hurricane risk," says Stanturf. "Additional research is needed on the effects on vulnerability of fragmentation, harvest systems, and other aspects of stand structure." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 18, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070417182843.htm | Global Warming Increases Wind Shear, Reduces Hurricanes, Climate Model Shows | Climate model simulations for the 21st century indicate a robust increase in wind shear in the tropical Atlantic due to global warming, which may inhibit hurricane development and intensification. Historically, increased wind shear has been associated with reduced hurricane activity and intensity. | This new finding is reported in a study by scientists at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami and NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, N.J., and, scheduled to be published April 18th in Geophysical Research Letters.While other studies have linked global warming to an increase in hurricane intensity, this study is the first to identify changes in wind shear that could counteract these effects. "The environmental changes found here do not suggest a strong increase in tropical Atlantic hurricane activity during the 21st century," said Brian Soden, Rosenstiel School associate professor of meteorology and physical oceanography and the paper's co-author. However, the study does identify other regions, such as the western tropical Pacific, where global warming does cause the environment to become more favorable for hurricanes. "Wind shear is one of the dominant controls to hurricane activity, and the models project substantial increases in the Atlantic," said Gabriel Vecchi, lead author of the paper and a research oceanographer at GFDL. "Based on historical relationships, the impact on hurricane activity of the projected shear change could be as large -- and in the opposite sense -- as that of the warming oceans."Examining possible impacts of human-caused greenhouse warming on hurricane activity, the researchers used climate models to assess changes in the environmental factors tied to hurricane formation and intensity. They focused on projected changes in vertical wind shear over the tropical Atlantic and its ties to the Pacific Walker circulation -- a vast loop of winds that influences climate across much of the globe and that varies in concert with El Niño and La Niña oscillations. By examining 18 different models, the authors identified a systematic increase in wind shear over much of the tropical Atlantic due to a slowing of the Pacific Walker circulation. Their research suggests that the increase in wind shear could inhibit both hurricane development and intensification. "This study does not, in any way, undermine the widespread consensus in the scientific community about the reality of global warming," said Soden. "In fact, the wind shear changes are driven by global warming." The authors also note that additional research will be required to fully understand how the increased wind shear affects hurricane activity more specifically. "This doesn't settle the issue; this is one piece of the puzzle that will contribute to an incredibly active field of research," Vecchi said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 17, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070415122022.htm | New Satellite Coverage In South America To Limit Effects Of Natural Disasters | South Americans, and millions more in the Western Hemisphere, are benefitting from the reposition of NOAA's GOES-10 spacecraft, a move designed to lessen the effects of natural disasters in the region. The satellite's successful shift from a position above the equator in the West, to a new spot in orbit, was recently announced. | "Repositioning GOES-10 provides a constant vigil over atmospheric conditions that trigger severe weather, and I am pleased that the United States can strengthen the quality and quantity of data available to our Latin American partners," said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. Shifting GOES-10 is part of the emerging GEOSS in the Americas, a Western Hemisphere initiative designed to advance the Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS. Through this endeavor, NOAA is exploring partnerships with countries and scientific organizations in the Americas and Caribbean to share Earth observations and develop and strengthen data networks. Western Hemisphere nations will work together to ensure the satellite data are disseminated and training is available to enable full use of the new information. "The satellite is functioning well and ready for hurricane season," said Gilberto Câmara, Ph.D., director of Brazil's National Space Research Institute (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais). "In the past, coverage has been interrupted during hurricanes and other severe weather events in the U.S. Now, South Americans will have continuing satellite coverage. We will no longer be left in the dark." NOAA's GOES satellites orbit Earth's equator at a speed matching the planet's rotation, allowing them to hover over one position. They provide scientists with detailed weather measurements and frequent imagery used to develop short-term forecasts that help protect life and livelihoods. In South America, the new satellite coverage is already having an impact. On March 8, for instance, Argentina was able to trace a low pressure development and then accurately issue a high-rainfall alert that helped save lives in Buenos Aires and other highly-populated areas. The new coverage also is contributing to improved fire detection in the Amazon rainforest of western Brazil.In addition, GOES-10 is providing South America with images of the Earth's atmosphere system twice as frequently as before. South America now receives coverage nearly as far south as the South Pole, with images every 15 minutes. History has proven that there is a vital need for the advanced warning this additional information may provide. During the1990s in South America, natural disasters caused nearly 70,000 deaths, and more than half were from flooding. Storms, cyclones, hurricanes and mudslides caused another 20 percent of the deaths. In May 2003, the largest flooding in 500 years hit Argentina's north-central region, displacing more than 100,000 people and causing $1 billion in damage. In the Western Hemisphere, nine countries are working with global partners to build GEOSS, including Argentina, Brazil, Belize, Canada, Chile, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay and the United States. More countries are expected to begin participating later this year. In the U.S., 15 federal agencies and three White House offices are engaged in developing the U.S. component of GEOSS. The goal of the integrated system of systems is to provide comprehensive, coordinated and sustained Earth observations from thousands of instruments worldwide, transforming the data they collect into a range of societal benefits spanning global public health, energy, agriculture and weather and climate, among others. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 16, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070413215713.htm | Designing Bioshields, Shelterbelts For Coastal Tsunami Protection | Iowa State University researchers are applying their knowledge of agricultural shelterbelts to protect coastal areas from tsunamis at the request of the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). | Following the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the December 2004 tsunami in Southeast Asia, many international planning agencies have searched for ways to prevent such tragedies in the future. Gene Takle, professor of agronomy and geological and atmospheric sciences, and colleagues Mike Chen and Xiaoqing Wu in atmospheric science were asked to develop a set of guidelines for rebuilding coastal forests based on their research on wind reduction by the use of agricultural shelterbelts.The Iowa State group was commissioned to write a paper on designing coastal forests and shelterbelts, which are known as "bioshields." Takle represented the group at a workshop under sponsorship of the FAO last summer in Khao Lak, Thailand, where hundreds of bodies had washed up on the beach after the 2004 tsunami."Much loss of life from this tsunami was attributed to destruction of coastal forests. Villages in India and Southeast Asia that preserved their coastal mangroves suffered far less damage," Takle said. "FAO requested guidelines for rebuilding these bioshields based on our work and understanding of agricultural shelterbelts."Their suggested guidelines include planting trees as close to the sea as possible; using short salt-tolerant and sparse shelters on the seaward edge; using tall species of high wind resistance on the landward side; and leaving gaps between rows and irregularly within the rows to extend the protected zone, but allowing for onshore flow of the cooling sea-breeze in nonhazardous conditions."Very little research has been done on this topic, so we used our computer model and previous experience on flow through living barriers to evaluate alternative shelter designs like tree heights, density, spacing and orientation to develop our recommendations," Takle said.Federal managers in Southeast Asia and India will consider the guidelines when rebuilding damaged coastal areas.Takle has teamed with meteorology graduate students Dan Rajewski and Sarah Schmidt to conduct additional studies to refine the preliminary guidelines he presented at the Thailand workshop and explore additional uses of bioshields against high winds. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 12, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070411110017.htm | Hurricane Katrina And 2004 Tsunami Caused Surprisingly Similar Destruction | Two of the world's worst natural disasters in recent years stemmed from different causes on opposite sides of the globe, but actually had much in common, according to researchers who are part of a large National Science Foundation-funded research initiative that has been studying both the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina of 2005. | One of the research team's surprising conclusions: when it comes to the damage they wreak, hurricanes and tsunamis can bring surprisingly similar forces to bear. "A lot of the hurricane damage along the Mississippi coastline came from storm surges -- not from high winds or levee flooding that occurred in the New Orleans area," said Yin Lu "Julie" Young, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University. "Storm surges result in very different mechanisms. When it comes to forces on a structure, what happens in a storm surge is very similar to what happens in a tsunami."During a storm surge, structures that were built to withstand the downward force of gravity now must cope with a totally different force: the upward and lateral push of water. In addition, buildings have to withstand assaults from debris caught up in the surge."Eighteen-wheeler containers, freed floating barges, and boats can all become projectiles that will strike objects in their path," said Young. "Large debris may also become lodged between structural elements like columns and lead to complete collapse of the structures."Young's collaborators are Ronald Riggs and Ian Robertson, professors at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Solomon Yim, a professor at Oregon State University. The team members will publish their work in an upcoming special edition of the Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal and Ocean Engineering.During their two field visits, the team took more than 2,000 photographs of the destruction to the Mississippi coast. One of Young's favorites is a photograph of a stack of delicate unchipped china that survived the storm completely unharmed. All that remains of the church where the china was used is a bent steel frame. "You have to appreciate the irony of nature," Young said. "Most of the time, the scenery is tragic, ironic, and beautiful all at the same time."One of the group's interesting research findings from the Mississippi work has to do with a phenomenon better known for occurring in neither hurricanes nor tsunamis but, rather, earthquakes. That is something known as "liquefaction." As the storm surge recedes, the sudden decrease in downward pressure on the saturated soil causes the sand to liquefy and flow out like a heavy slurry. This can lead to the eventual collapse of buildings, highways, or bridge abutments, as well as gigantic potholes along coastal roads.The team was awarded a NSF NEES-SG grant to study the effect of tsunamis on engineered structures. The final goal of the project is to develop design recommendations to enhance the safety of coastal infrastructures subject to tsunamis. "If you consider the gravitation, wind, seismic and wave forces, as well as the surrounding soil composition, a building can be designed such that it should be available for immediate occupancy after a minor event, and be able to remain structurally intact to allow for safe evacuation during a Category 3 hurricane like Katrina," said Young.Understanding how to build hurricane-resistant buildings is one thing; getting society to implement that knowledge is quite another, Young said. "Politics and human values come into play," she said. "People are resilient and have short memories and think that if another hurricane comes along they can just rebuild. I admire their strength but at the same time there is a certain stubbornness about not learning from past mistakes. People like to do what they did before because it's easier than fixing the root of the problem."Last week, Young gave a presentation on her research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She will also be giving presentations at the Oregon State University, California Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California, and the University of California at Berkeley. "We hope to present our findings widely so that engineers can learn from this and modify future design codes to minimize damage," she said.Title: Lessons from Hurricane Katrina Storm Surge on Bridges and Buildings, By Ian N. Robertson, H. Ronald Riggs, Solomon Yim and Yin Lu Young.Abstract : The storm surge associated with Hurricane Katrina caused tremendous damage along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Similar damage was observed subsequent to the Indian Ocean Tsunami of December 26, 2004. In order to gain a better understanding of the performance of engineered structures subjected to coastal inundation due to tsunami or hurricane storm surge, the authors surveyed damage to bridges, buildings and other coastal infrastructure subsequent to Hurricane Katrina. Numerous lessons were learned from analysis of the observed damage, and these are reported herein. A number of structures experienced significant structural damage due to storm surge and wave action. Structural members submerged during the inundation were subjected to significant hydrostatic uplift forces due to buoyancy, enhanced by trapped air pockets, and hydrodynamic uplift forces due to wave action. Any floating or mobile object in the nearshore/on-shore areas can become floating debris, affecting structures in two ways: impact and water-damming. Foundation soils and foundation systems are at risk from shear- and liquefaction-induced scour, unless designed appropriately. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 3, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070403172305.htm | Very Active 2007 Hurricane Season Predicted | The U.S. Atlantic basin will likely experience a very active hurricane season, the Colorado State University forecast team announced today, increasing its earlier prediction for the 2007 hurricane season. | The team's forecast now anticipates 17 named storms forming in the Atlantic basin between June 1 and Nov. 30. Nine of the 17 storms are predicted to become hurricanes, and of those nine, five are expected to develop into intense or major hurricanes (Saffir/Simpson category 3-4-5) with sustained winds of 111 mph or greater.No hurricanes made landfall along the U.S. coastline in 2006. The 2006 season witnessed a total of 10 named storms, 5 hurricanes and two major hurricanes. The 2005 season, considered unusual by the Colorado State forecast team, witnessed 27 named storms, 15 hurricanes and seven intense hurricanes. Long-term averages are 9.6 named storms, 5.9 hurricanes and 2.3 intense hurricanes per year."We are calling for a very active hurricane season this year, but not as active as the 2004 and 2005 seasons," said Phil Klotzbach of the Colorado State hurricane forecast team. "Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 74 percent compared with the last-century average of 52 percent."In December and January, we had a weak to moderate El Nino event in the tropical Pacific Ocean. When you have El Nino conditions during the hurricane season, it increases vertical wind shear across the tropical Atlantic and typically results in a weaker tropical cyclone season," Klotzbach said. "However, we've seen El Nino conditions dissipate quite rapidly late this winter, so we do not think that's going to be an inhibiting factor this year. Also, we have warm Atlantic sea surface temperatures this year which we've seen just about every year since 1995."The hurricane forecast team predicts tropical cyclone activity in 2007 will be 185 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."We were quite fortunate last year in that we had no hurricane landfalls," Klotzbach said. "The 2006 season was only the 12th year since 1945 that the United States witnessed no hurricane landfalls. Since then, we have had only two consecutive-year periods where there were no hurricane landfalls - 1981-1982 and 2000-2001."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," said William Gray, who began forecasting hurricane seasons at Colorado State 24 years ago. "Following the two very active seasons of 2004 and 2005, 2006 experienced slightly below-average activity with no landfalling hurricanes."We've had an upturn of major storms since 1995," Gray said. "We think this upturn of major storms will continue for another 15 or 20 years."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 Niño, 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.For 2007, Gray and the hurricane forecast team expect continued warm tropical and north Atlantic sea-surface temperatures, prevalent in most years since 1995, as well as neutral or weak La Nina conditions - a recipe for greatly enhanced Atlantic basin hurricane activity. These factors are similar to conditions that occurred during the 1952, 1964, 1966, 1995 and 2003 seasons. The average of these five seasons had well above-average activity, and Klotzbach and Gray predict the 2007 season will have activity in line with the average of these five years.Gray does not attribute changes in recent and projected Atlantic hurricane activity to human-induced global warming."Although global surface temperatures have increased over the last century and over the last 30 years, there is no reliable data available to indicate increased hurricane frequency or intensity in any of the globe's seven tropical cyclone basins, except for the Atlantic over the past 12 years," Gray said. "Meteorologists who study tropical cyclones have no valid physical theory as to why hurricane frequency or intensity would necessarily be altered significantly by small amounts of global mean temperature change." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
April 2, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070328155433.htm | New Analysis: Should Improve Hurricane And Storm Surge Modeling | Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory - Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC) have directly derived the air-sea momentum exchange at the ocean interface using observed ocean currents under Hurricane Ivan and determined that it decreases when winds exceed 32 meters per second. This is the first time that momentum exchange at the air-sea interface has been directly calculated from ocean current observations under extreme winds generated by a major tropical cyclone. The complete findings of this study titled "Bottom-up Determination of Air-Sea Momentum Exchange Under a Major Tropical Cyclone," are published in the March 23, 2007 issue of Science. | Proper evaluation of the air-sea exchange under extreme winds is of great importance for modeling and forecasting used in hurricane studies, such as in forecasting of storm track and intensity, surges, waves, and currents, particularly since our coasts have become so heavily populated. These results should be of widespread interest to the public, oceanographers, atmospheric scientists, numerical modelers, oil and gas concerns, commerce, and government agencies, explains William Teague of NRL. This research has a direct impact on storm surge modeling. Many models have been estimating the air-sea momentum exchange by assuming that it increases as the wind speed increases. But the NRL research definitely shows that this is not the case. This research will lead to a better estimation of the air-sea momentum exchange which will improve both ocean circulation and storm surge models.During NRL's Slope to Shelf Energetics and Exchange Dynamics (SEED) field experiment, six current profiler moorings were deployed on the continental shelf at water depths ranging between 60 and 90 meters just west of the DeSoto Canyon, about 100 miles south of Mobile Bay, Alabama. Eight moorings were also deployed down the slope, but not used in this study. Fortuitously, early on September 16, the eye of Hurricane Ivan passed directly over the array of moorings. Historically, instruments moored in the ocean do not even survive such powerful storms, much less direct hits. Fortunately, all of the SEED moorings survived this powerful storm, and provided the best ocean measurements of currents and waves ever obtained directly under a major hurricane. Past studies have attempted to determine the air-sea momentum exchange from the atmospheric side of the air-sea interface ("top-down determination") using limited, difficult to interpret meteorological observations and/or models developed for the atmospheric boundary layer. For instance, drop sondes launched from airplanes during hurricanes have been used to measure wind profiles and to estimate air-sea momentum transfer. These wind analyses suggest that the air-sea momentum transfer decreases at high wind speeds, not increases as previously thought. No attempt has been made to determine this momentum transfer independently based on ocean observations until now. The initial forced oceanic response to Hurricane Ivan on the continental shelf consisted of a strong barotropic flow and a much weaker baroclinic component. This response was governed to the first order by the linear time-dependent depth-integrated momentum balance. Such behavior of the currents allowed a direct estimation of air-sea momentum exchange for winds greater than 20 meters per second. NRL's direct derivation of the air-sea momentum exchange using unique ocean current profiles measured directly under Hurricane Ivan confirms the trend suggested by studies based on meteorological measurements and models developed for the atmospheric boundary layer. NRL researchers found that the exchange decreases when hurricane winds exceed 32 meters per second. These findings are compared with the atmospheric-based work using the drag coefficient. The wind stress at the sea surface, which was directly calculated from current measurements, is related to the square of the wind speed times the drag coefficient. NRL researchers were able to determine good estimates of the drag coefficient with error bounds for high winds up to 48 meters per second. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
March 29, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070328110954.htm | Did Dust Bust The 2006 Hurricane Season Forecasts? | A recent NASA study suggests that tiny dust particles may have foiled forecasts that the 2006 hurricane season would be another active one. | In June and July 2006, there were several significant dust storms over the Sahara Desert in Africa. As this dust traveled westward into the Atlantic, satellite data show that the particles blocked sunlight from reaching the ocean surface, causing ocean waters to cool. These cooler waters may have impeded some storminess since hurricanes rely on warm waters to form. The 2006 Atlantic hurricane season wrapped up on Nov. 30 with just four tropical storms and five hurricanes, relatively calm compared to the record number of 12 tropical storms and 15 hurricanes in 2005. While several factors likely contributed to the sharp decrease in the number of storms, "this research is the first to show that dust does have a major effect on seasonal hurricane activity," said lead author William Lau, chief of the Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "Dust concentrations may play as big a role as other atmospheric conditions, like El Niño, and offer some predictive value, so they should be closely monitored to improve hurricane forecasts."Other researchers, however, say that atmospheric dust may have had relatively little influence on the 2006 hurricane season compared to the effects of underlying El Niño conditions.Sea surface temperatures in 2006 across the prime hurricane-breeding regions of the Atlantic and Caribbean were found to be as much as 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) cooler than in 2005. Most striking was how quickly sea surface temperatures responded to variations in the amount of Saharan dust, Lau said. Following the most significant dust outbreak, which occurred in June and July, ocean waters cooled abruptly in just two weeks, suggesting that the dust had an almost immediate effect.The dust worked to cool the ocean, but it also warmed the atmosphere by absorbing more of the sun's energy. This temperature difference resulted in a shift in the large-scale atmospheric circulation. As air rose over West Africa and the tropical Atlantic, it sank and became less moist over the western Atlantic and Caribbean. This pattern helped to increase surface winds that enhanced ocean evaporation and churned deeper, colder waters, causing the area of cool seas to expand. Lau and co-author Kyu-Myong Kim of Goddard analyzed data on ocean temperatures, clouds, and water vapor from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite and atmospheric dust levels from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite. The study was published in the Feb. 27 issue of the American Geophysical Union's Eos.The research also considered the role of El Niño by examining historical data on the intensity and development of tropical storms and hurricanes across the Atlantic basin. "We found that Saharan dust may have a stronger influence than El Niño on hurricane formation in the subtropical western Atlantic and Caribbean, but that El Niño has a greater impact in the tropical eastern Atlantic, where many storms are generated," said Lau. El Niño is the periodic warming of the ocean waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, which in turn can influence pressure and wind patterns across the tropical Atlantic."In 2006, it is quite possible that the Saharan dust may have amplified or even initiated pre-existing atmosphere-ocean conditions due to El Niño," said Lau. But other researchers say that while the amount of atmospheric dust in 2006 was greater than in 2005, the increase may have been too insignificant to be influential on the season. Instead, they believe the atmospheric effects from the underlying El Niño pattern in 2006 likely played a greater role.Scott Braun, a hurricane specialist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said that in 2006, El Niño brought about broad changes to atmospheric conditions that likely had at least some influence on hurricane formation across much of the Atlantic. Braun noted that during most of the hurricane season a large area of high pressure was located across the eastern Atlantic. This steered disturbances away from the warmest waters, so that they were less able to mature into tropical storms and hurricanes. At the same time, sinking motion -- an atmospheric air mass that has cooled and is falling -- combined with enhanced winds in the middle and upper atmosphere to minimize development in the Caribbean and western Atlantic and keep storms away from the U.S. These strong upper-level winds would contribute to a drastic change of winds with height, known as "shear" that can rip storms apart. "This large-scale pattern has been associated with the effects of El Niño, suggesting it may have played a role in the seasonal activity," said Braun. "In fact, the last time the Atlantic produced so few storms was in 1997, when an El Niño pattern was also in place."Braun and another hurricane researcher, Bowen Shen at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, agree that factors other than increased atmospheric dust may have contributed to cooler ocean waters in 2006."It is arguable that stronger surface winds over the tropical Atlantic may have cooled sea surface temperatures," said Shen. These winds likely helped to keep waters cooler by mixing the upper layers of the ocean and sweeping warmer waters westward. And although the waters were certainly cooler in 2006 than in 2005, they were still at or slightly above normal, suggesting other conditions helped to shape the season.Current and future research efforts that examine how the ocean responds to surface winds and dust should help clarify their role in hurricane development. Although seasonal atmospheric patterns may increase the amount of dust across the Atlantic, the same atmospheric patterns may also be responsible for creating stronger winds at the ocean surface. By modeling the oceans, winds, and dust, researchers will generate a clearer picture of how these conditions vary from season to season."Although we continue to make significant strides in forecasting hurricanes and understanding their development, it is important to remember that the atmosphere is a chaotic system and numerous meteorological variables influence individual storms and activity throughout the season. NASA's constellation of several Earth-observing satellites, including Aura, is designed to provide coordinated measurements of these many variables for future research," said Lau. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
March 21, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070320120440.htm | Prehistoric Hurricane Activity Uncovered | Hurricanes Katrina and Rita focused the international spotlight on the vulnerability of the U.S. coastline. Fears that a "super-hurricane" could make a direct hit on a major city and cause even more staggering losses of life, land and economy triggered an outpouring of studies directed at every facet of this ferocious weather phenomenon. Now, an LSU professor takes us one step closer to predicting the future by drilling holes into the past. | Kam-biu Liu, George William Barineau III Professor in LSU's Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, is the pioneer of a relatively new field of study called paleotempestology, or the study of prehistoric hurricanes. Liu, a long-time resident of Louisiana, became even more interested in the subject during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when a national debate was sparked concerning hurricane intensity patterns and cycles. "People were discussing the probability of a Category 5 hurricane making direct impact on New Orleans," said Liu. "That's tricky, because it's never actually happened in history. Even Katrina, though still extremely powerful, was only a Category 3 storm at landfall." Currently, experts tend to agree that Atlantic hurricane activity fluctuates in cycles of approximately 20-30 years, alternating periods of high activity with periods of relative calm. But records of such events have only been kept for the last 150 years or so. What would happen, Liu wondered, if you looked back thousands of years? Would larger cycles present themselves? How does a scientist study storms that happened during prehistoric times? "Basically, we worked under the assumption that the storm surge from these catastrophic hurricanes would have the capability to drive sand over beach barriers and into coastal lakes," said Liu. "This is called an overwash event. We believed that pulling sediment cores from coastal lakes and analyzing the sand layers might give us the information we needed." The same methodology can be used to find overwash sand layers in coastal marshes. Using radiocarbon analysis and other dating techniques, Liu and his research team worked to develop a chronology of prehistoric storms in order to analyze any emerging patterns or cycles. This methodology has proven successful for the group. In an article printed in the March issue of American Scientist, the magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, Liu states that evidence from the Gulf Coast drill sites shows that hurricanes of catastrophic magnitude directly hit each location only approximately 10 -- 12 times in the past 3,800 years. "That means the chances of any particular Gulf location being hit by a Category 4 or Category 5 hurricane in any given year is around 0.3 percent," said Liu. After spending more that 15 years studying dozens of lakes and marshes along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coasts, Liu and his students are moving on to a more tropical location. Liu was recently awarded more than $690,000 from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, or IAI, for his new project titled "Paleotempestology of the Caribbean Region," which is slated to run for five years. He serves as the principal investigator for this international and multi-disciplinary project, which involves 12 other co-investigators from four different countries, including another contributor from LSU, Nina Lam, a professor in the Department of Environmental Studies. Institutions participating in the study include: the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Brown University, Boston College, the University of Tennessee, the University of Toronto, the Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Costa Rica, and the Instituto Mexicano de Tecnologia del Agua, or IMTA, in Mexico. Liu's Caribbean research has attracted funding not only from the IAI but also from the U.S. National Science Foundation. He and his students have already engaged in three separate expeditions to the Caribbean, stopping in Anguilla, Barbuda and the Bahamas, in the summer and fall of 2006 to core coastal salt ponds in order to gather paleohurricane evidence for analysis. He has recently returned from a coring trip to the Mosquito Coast of Honduras, where he and his co-workers studied how Hurricane Mitch, a catastrophic hurricane that killed more than 12,000 people in Honduras and Nicaragua in 1998, impacted the local communities and environment. His students have also conducted coring fieldwork in Barbados, Nicaragua and Belize during the past year. With many future trips to the Caribbean in the planning stages, they hope to reproduce a prehistoric hurricane analysis as successful as their Gulf Coast study. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
March 14, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070307075649.htm | NASA Peers Deep Inside Hurricanes | Determined to understand why some storms grow into hurricanes while others fizzle, NASA scientists recently looked deep into thunderstorms off the African coast using satellites and airplanes. | During July and August 2006, a team of international scientists, including NASA researchers, journeyed to the west coast of Africa. Their mission was to better understand why some clusters of thunderstorms that drift off the African coast, known as easterly waves, develop into furious hurricanes, while others simply fade away within hours. A major component of the campaign, called the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA), was to study the Saharan Air Layer. The layer is a mass of very dry, dusty air that forms over the Sahara Desert and influences the development of tropical cyclones, the general name given to tropical depressions, storms and hurricanes. Budding hurricanes in the tropical Atlantic off the African coast often rapidly deteriorate when they interact with this stable air mass and its strong winds. This mission was unique because it incorporated NASA's state-of-the-art technology in space and in the air. With sophisticated satellite data and aircraft, scientists are better able to examine the "tug-of-war" between forces favorable for hurricane development -- warm sea surface temperatures and rotating clusters of strong thunderstorms -- and forces that suppress hurricanes such as dust particles and changing wind speed and direction at high altitudes."Most late-season Atlantic basin hurricanes develop from African easterly waves, so improving our knowledge of these hurricane seedlings is critical," said Ramesh Kakar, program manager for NAMMA at NASA headquarters. "Several studies have shown that the Saharan Air Layer suppresses hurricane development, but the exact mechanisms are very unclear, and it remains a wild card in the list of ingredients necessary for hurricane formation." NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument on the Terra and Aqua satellites identified the location, size, and intensity of dust plumes throughout the mission. Using other satellites, scientists could then determine any possible connection between dust outbreaks and changes in tropical easterly waves. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, for instance, provided information on rainfall and thunderclouds, while the QuikSCAT satellite identified how low-level winds were rotating, both critical elements in hurricane formation. NASA scientists also used a satellite product designed specifically to assess the strength of the Saharan Air Layer that uses imagery from Meteosat, a European satellite. Well-developed regions of the Saharan Air Layer were easily identified by measuring tiny dust particles and atmospheric water vapor content. Multiple images taken over time tracked dust movement and evolution across the Atlantic.After analyzing satellite data, researchers flew aircraft into specific, targeted areas to probe storm clouds over a very short time and small area to learn how microscopic dust particles, called aerosols, interact with cloud droplets contained in thunderstorms. Aerosols potentially influence rainfall and the overall structure and future strength of a developing tropical cyclone. The extreme dry air, warm temperatures, and wind shear within these elevated dust layers may also weaken fledgling tropical cyclones.Scientists flew a total of 13 aircraft missions inside seven storm systems. NASA's DC-8 research aircraft contained numerous instruments to take measurements deep inside clouds, the environment of thunderstorms, and the Saharan Air Layer. Researchers also took advantage of several aircraft probes and especially dropsondes, a sensor attached to a parachute that is dropped into storm clouds. It typically collects data on wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, and pressure that are relayed to a computer in the airplane.Aircraft sensors and laser devices called lidars measured water vapor content and cloud, dust and precipitation particle sizes, shapes, and types. Revolutionary radar on the aircraft was also used to gather better details on the intensity of rainfall and where exactly it was falling. One special sensor aboard the DC-8, called the High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer, provided a 3-D distribution of temperature and water vapor in the atmosphere. The sensor is ideal for hurricane studies since it can look through thick clouds and probe into the interior of the storms. It has also led to the development of a new microwave sounder for geostationary satellites, GeoSTAR, which will make it possible to monitor the interior of hurricanes continuously without having to wait for a satellite to pass overhead.Throughout the field mission, a Web-based real time mission monitor, developed by Marshall Space Flight Center, allowed scientists to track the progress of the experiment from anywhere on the globe using a standard internet connection."Through the use of sophisticated technology, NAMMA provided an excellent opportunity to advance our understanding of tropical cyclones, as we gathered data on the critical elements at both the very small and large scales, from microscopic dust to air currents spanning hundreds of miles," said Jeff Halverson, one of four NAMMA mission scientists. "Much of the data gathered is still being analyzed, but the preliminary findings are very promising."As researchers study the data collected, and input them into computer models, they will test hypotheses surrounding tropical cyclone formation in the Atlantic. NASA scientists will also compare NAMMA findings to data from previous missions that took place in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The results should help determine the role of factors universal to hurricane formation and those uniquely dependent on location, such as the Saharan Air Layer in the eastern Atlantic and tall mountains in Central America. Ultimately, research findings will improve the group of computer models that help meteorologists forecast hurricane strength and intensity.Other scientists will be using NAMMA data for a variety of related research goals, including advancing the understanding of precipitation and cloud microphysics, examining the link between tropical cyclone development and West Africa rainfall, and assessing the accuracy of new satellites. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
March 7, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070302082814.htm | Hurricane Can Form New Eyewall And Change Intensity Rapidly | Data collected in 2005 from Hurricane Rita is providing the first documented evidence that rapid intensity changes can be caused by clouds outside the wall of a hurricane's eye coming together to form a new eyewall. | Hurricanes can gain or lose intensity with startling quickness, a phenomenon never more obvious than during the historic 2005 hurricane season that spawned the remarkably destructive Katrina and Rita. Researchers flew through Rita, Katrina and other 2005 storms trying to unlock the key to intensity changes. Now, data from Rita is providing the first documented evidence that such intensity changes can be caused by clouds outside the wall of a hurricane's eye coming together to form a new eyewall. "The comparison between Katrina and Rita will be interesting because we got excellent data from both storms. Rita was the one that showed the eyewall replacement," said Robert Houze Jr., a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor and lead author of a paper detailing the work in the March 2 edition of the journal Science. "The implication of our findings is that some new approaches to hurricane forecasting might be possible," he said. Houze and Shuyi Chen, an associate professor of meteorology and physical oceanography at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, lead a scientific collaboration called the Hurricane Rainband and Intensity Change Experiment. The project is designed to reveal how the outer rainbands interact with a hurricane's eye to influence the storm's intensity. Chen is a co-author of the Science paper, as are Bradley Smull of the UW and Wen-Chau Lee and Michael Bell of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. The project is the first to use three Doppler radar-equipped aircraft flying simultaneously in and near hurricane rainbands. The project also uses a unique computer model developed by Chen's group at the Rosenstiel School. "The model provided an exceptionally accurate forecast of eyewall replacement, which was key to guiding the aircraft to collect the radar data," Chen said. A hurricane's strongest winds occur in the wall of clouds surrounding the calm eye. The researchers found that as the storm swirled into a tighter spin, a band of dry air developed around the eyewall, like a moat around a castle. But while a moat protects a castle, the hurricane's moat eventually will destroy the existing eyewall, Houze said. Meanwhile, outer rainbands form a new eyewall and the moat merges with the original eye and the storm widens, so the spin is reduced and winds around the eye are slowed temporarily, something like what happens as a figure skater's arms are extended. But the storm soon intensifies again as the new eyewall takes shape. "The exciting thing about the data from Rita is that they show that the moat is a very dynamic region that cuts off the old eye and establishes a wider eye," Houze said. "It's not just a passive region that's caught in between two eyewalls." Hurricane forecasters in recent years have developed remarkable accuracy in figuring out hours, even days, ahead of time what path a storm is most likely to follow. But they have been unable to say with much certainty how strong the storm will be when it hits land. This work could provide the tools they need to understand when a storm is going to change intensity and how strong it will become. Scientists already knew that intensity can change greatly in a short time -- in the case of Rita the storm grew from a category 1, the least powerful hurricane, to a category 5, the most powerful, in less than a day. Aircraft observation of the moat allowed scientists to see Rita's rapid loss of intensity during eyewall replacement, which was followed by rapid intensification. "Future aircraft observations focused in the same way should make it possible to identify other small-scale areas in a storm where the processes that affect intensity are going on, then that data can be fed into high-resolution models to forecast storm intensity changes," Houze said. That understanding could prove valuable for coastal residents deciding whether a storm is powerful enough to warrant their seeking safety farther inland. Rita and Katrina, among the six most intense Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded in terms of the barometric pressure within the core of the storm, struck just three weeks apart in August and September 2005, together resulting in some 2,000 fatalities and more than $90 billion in damage along the Gulf of Mexico coastline. The most-intense Atlantic storm ever recorded, Wilma, also struck in the record-setting 2005 hurricane season, which produced 15 hurricanes, including a fourth category 5 storm, Emily, and a category 4 storm, Dennis. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provided two research aircraft for the project and the third was provided by the U.S. Navy and funded by the National Science Foundation. The planes flew several novel flight paths, including a circular track in Rita's moat, to gather information from the edges of rainbands and other structures in the hurricane. "We used a ground-control system with a lot of data at our fingertips to focus the aircraft into places in the storm where there were processes happening related to intensity changes," Houze said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
March 5, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070305085344.htm | Researchers Explore Greenland's Impact On Weather Systems | Science doesn’t always happen at a lab bench. For University of Toronto Mississauga physicist Kent Moore, it happens while strapped into a four-point harness, flying head-on into hurricane-force winds off the southern tip of Greenland. | Moore, chair of the chemical and physical sciences, headed to Greenland Feb. 18 as part of the Greenland Flow Distortion experiment (GFDex), an International Polar Year research project involving Canadian, British, Norwegian and Icelandic scientists. Moore, a professor of atmospheric physics, is leading the Canadian contingent.GFDex will provide the first evidence of the role that Greenland plays in distorting atmospheric flow around its massive land and ice mass, affecting European and Asian weather systems. Moreover, the findings may reveal how sea and atmospheric interactions in the Arctic and North Atlantic areas influence climate.At the heart of GFDex are wind patterns known as “tip jets.” Greenland, an icy obstacle more than three times the size of Texas, forces air to go around its bulk and creates regions of high wind speeds. Tip jets travel east from the tip of Greenland towards Iceland at speeds of 30 to 40 metres per second. Just as wind blows heat away from the body, making windy winter days feel even colder, tip jets blow heat away from the surface of the ocean. This cooler, denser water sinks, affecting currents of circulating warm and cool water within the ocean.About two years ago, Moore discovered a different kind of tip jet, one that blows west towards Labrador. Now known as reverse tip jets, these also force circulation of water over the Labrador Sea to the west of Greenland. “We’ve seen these things in satellite imagery but no one’s ever actually observed them,” Moore said. “We’ll be making the first in situ observations of these jets. It’s kind of exciting.”The data will help scientists understand how the flow of air around Greenland affects weather downwind. “If things are happening near Greenland today, probably two days from now that [air mass] will move down over Europe,” said Moore. “Two or three days after it’s affected Europe, it affects Asia and then ultimately comes around and affects North America. So Greenland ultimately affects the whole Northern Hemisphere … our knowledge will potentially help improve forecasts.”Moore is also hoping the findings will clarify the climate processes affecting Greenland’s glaciers, which have shrunk significantly in the past few years. “There’s evidence that the ice cap is retreating quite dramatically. In 2003, a cyclone came up on the east side of Greenland and there was a huge melting event,” Moore said. “It’s one of my hopes that we’ll be able to understand a bit more about the processes that determine the mass balance of the Greenland ice cap.”Making these observations requires both advanced technology and a cast-iron stomach. Moore and his colleagues, along with graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, will be making 17 flights into the tip jets in a British research aircraft called FAAM (facility for airborne atmospheric measurements). Pods and sensors stud the outside of the aircraft. In order to get the best data, the researchers need to fly just 100 feet above the heaving seas, in winds of more than 140 kilometres per hour. “In these conditions and at these levels, the turbulence will be quite severe,” Moore said. “Once, on a similar flight in the Arctic, the lens of my glasses popped out!” | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
March 2, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070228123140.htm | New Evidence That Global Warming Fuels Stronger Atlantic Hurricanes | Atmospheric scientists have uncovered fresh evidence to support the hotly debated theory that global warming has contributed to the emergence of stronger hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. | The unsettling trend is confined to the Atlantic, however, and does not hold up in any of the world's other oceans, researchers have also found. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported the finding in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The work should help resolve some of the controversy that has swirled around two prominent studies that drew connections last year between global warming and the onset of increasingly intense hurricanes. "The debate is not about scientific methods, but instead centers around the quality of hurricane data," says lead author James Kossin, a research scientist at UW-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies. "So we thought, 'Lets take the first step toward resolving this debate.'" The inconsistent nature of hurricane data has been a sore spot within the hurricane research community for decades. Before the advent of weather satellites, scientists were forced to rely on scattered ship reports and sailor logs to stay abreast of storm conditions. The advent of weather satellites during the 1960s dramatically improved the situation, but the technology has changed so rapidly that newer satellite records are barely consistent with older ones. Kossin and his colleagues realized they needed to smooth out the data before exploring any interplay between warmer temperatures and hurricane activity. Working with an existing NCDC archive that holds global satellite information for the years 1983 through 2005, the researchers evened out the numbers by essentially simplifying newer satellite information to align it with older records. "This new dataset is unlike anything that's been done before," says Kossin. "It's going to serve a purpose as being the only globally consistent dataset around. The caveat of course, is that it only goes back to 1983." Even so, it's a good start. Once the NCDC researchers recalibrated the hurricane figures, Kossin took a fresh look at how the new numbers on hurricane strength correlate with records on warming ocean temperatures, a side effect of global warming. What he found both supported and contradicted previous findings. "The data says that the Atlantic has been trending upwards in hurricane intensity quite a bit," says Kossin. "But the trends appear to be inflated or spurious everywhere else, meaning that we still can't make any global statements." Sea-surface temperatures may be one reason why greenhouse gases are exacting a unique toll on the Atlantic Ocean, says Kossin. Hurricanes need temperatures of around 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Fahrenheit) to gather steam. On average, the Atlantic's surface is slightly colder than that but other oceans, such as the Western Pacific, are naturally much warmer. "The average conditions in the Atlantic at any given time are just on the cusp of what it takes for a hurricane to form," says Kossin. " So it might be that imposing only a small (man-made) change in conditions, creates a much better chance of having a hurricane." The Atlantic is also unique in that all the physical variables that converge to form hurricanes -- including wind speeds, wind directions and temperatures -- mysteriously feed off each other in ways that only make conditions more ripe for a storm. But scientists don't really understand why, Kossin adds. "While we can see a correlation between global warming and hurricane strength, we still need to understand exactly why the Atlantic is reacting to warmer temperatures in this way, and that is much more difficult to do," says Kossin. "We need to be creating models and simulations to understand what is really happening here. From here on, that is what we should be thinking about." The work was funded by the National Science Foundation. Co-authors Daniel Vimont, a UW-Madison atmospheric scientist, Ken Knapp, a scientist at the NCDC, and Richard Murnane, a scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, also contributed to the study. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
February 28, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070228093721.htm | La Nina May Soon Arrive | On the heels of El Niño, its opposite, La Niña may soon arrive. In a weekly update, scientists at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center noted that as the 2006-2007 El Niño faded, surface and subsurface ocean temperatures have rapidly decreased. Recently, cooler-than-normal water temperatures have developed at the surface in the east-central equatorial Pacific, indicating a possible transition to La Niña conditions. | Typically, during the U.S. spring and summer months, La Niña conditions do not significantly impact overall inland temperature and precipitation patterns, however, La Niña episodes often do have an effect on Atlantic and Pacific hurricane activity. “Although other scientific factors affect the frequency of hurricanes, there tends to be a greater-than-normal number of Atlantic hurricanes and fewer-than-normal number of eastern Pacific hurricanes during La Niña events,” said retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “During the winter, usual La Niña impacts include drier and warmer-than-average conditions over the southern United States." “NOAA's ability to detect and monitor the formation, duration and strength of El Niño and La Niña events is enhanced by continuous improvements in satellite and buoy observations in the equatorial Pacific,” Lautenbacher added. “These observing systems include the TAO/TRITON moored and Argo drift buoys, as well as NOAA's polar orbiting satellites.”La Niña conditions occur when ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific become cooler than normal. These changes affect tropical rainfall patterns and atmospheric winds over the Pacific Ocean, which influence the patterns of rainfall and temperatures in many areas worldwide.“La Niña events sometimes follow on the heels of El Niño conditions,” said Vernon Kousky, research meteorologist at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. “It is a naturally occurring phenomenon that can last up to three years. La Niña episodes tend to develop during March-June, reach peak intensity during December-February, and then weaken during the following March-May. “The last lengthy La Niña event was 1998-2001, which contributed to serious drought conditions in many sections of the western United States,” said Douglas Lecomte, drought specialist at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center. NOAA will issue the U.S. Spring Outlook on March 15, and its Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook in May. Both outlooks will reflect the most current La Niña forecast.“While the status of El Niño/La Niña is of vital importance to our seasonal forecasts, it is but one measure we use when making actual temperature and precipitation forecasts,” said Kousky. NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA 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 the 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 60 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 | 2,007 |
February 22, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070221093236.htm | Brighter Skies For Forecasting? Climate Scientists To Measure Impact Of Atmosphere Over Greenland And Iceland On Northern Europe's Weather | The notoriously dark art of forecasting the British weather is about to get much brighter -- thanks to a groundbreaking new survey of the skies over Greenland. | An international team of climate scientists led by the University of East Anglia will measure for the first time the influence of the atmosphere over Greenland and Iceland on the weather in Northern Europe.The mountainous region at the southern tip of Greenland produces hurricane-strength 'tip jets', 'barrier winds' and 'mesoscale cyclones' which 'force' the overturning of the ocean. The atmosphere here also impacts on weather downstream in the UK some three to four days later. The experiment will make detailed measurements of weather features that are influenced by the flow around Greenland. For example, small cyclones known as 'polar lows' can sometimes produce heavy snow in North-West Europe.The pioneering research led by Dr Ian Renfrew of UEA's School of Environmental Sciences comes at the start of the International Polar Year which begins on March 1 and is launched in the UK by HRH the Princess Royal on Feb 26. "In Britain we tend to view medium-range weather forecasts with a certain scepticism, so it is very exciting to be part of a project which could significantly improve their accuracy," said Dr Renfrew."Though we have suspected for several years that the mountainous presence of Greenland has a strong influence over our own weather, this will be the first time that its impact has been observed."This will be the first time that this area has been targeted with additional meteorological observations aimed at improving subsequent weather forecasts. Richard Swinbank, who is leading the Met Office team, said: "We will identify areas where additional targeted observations should be particularly beneficial, and afterwards we will check the benefit that the extra observations had on our forecasts."The intention is that this targeting will help to improve forecast quality during the experiment, and also help with designing the observational networks of the future.As well as improving predictions of UK weather, the research will also fill in missing gaps in the existing climate change models, such as those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its major report on February 2. This will help to improve both the accuracy and the long-term range of climate change predictions.From February 21 to March 10 the researchers will take to the skies over Greenland in a specially adapted aircraft, supplied by the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM), to conduct the Greenland Flow Distortion Experiment (GFDex) experiment. The team includes scientists from the UK, Canada, Norway, Iceland and the US. The UK Met Office is a project partner and the research is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
January 19, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070118121303.htm | 2006 Hurricane Season Was Near Normal | After the record setting season of 2005 with 27 named tropical cyclones, many meteorologists and hurricane specialists were forecasting another above average hurricane season for 2006, but it didn't happen. NASA scientists have learned several reasons why. | Although hurricane cycles still remain somewhat of a mystery that scientists are trying to solve, the general ingredients of what causes a hurricane to form are relatively well known. You need the winds to behave correctly, sea surface temperatures of at least 82 degrees Fahrenheit, and no interference from African dust, among other things.The Atlantic hurricane season ended on Nov. 30, and wound up having near-normal activity with nine named storms, including five hurricanes, two of which became major hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher. An average Atlantic season has 11 named storms, with six growing into hurricanes and two becoming major hurricanes. Unlike the past three years, in 2006, the stronger hurricanes stayed at sea.In 2006, there were several factors that reduced the number of Atlantic Ocean storms from forming compared to 2005, while the eastern Pacific still saw 25 storms develop in 2006. In 2006, the Atlantic factors included lower sea-surface temperatures, the switch from weak La Nina to weak El Niño conditions and changes in the large-scale steering flow of winds associated with the Bermuda High (a semi-permanent high pressure system near Bermuda in the Atlantic that moves storms around it in a clockwise motion). Persistent low-level easterly winds may have acted to keep the Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures lower through mixing of the upper ocean. When winds blow constantly, they push the warmer waters away, allowing cooler, deeper waters to come to the surface, keeping the ocean's surface cooler.This past year, the Bermuda High steered systems away from the U.S. by steering them northward into the cooler waters of the Central Atlantic Ocean instead of into the warmer waters of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico as it did to storms in 2004 and 2005. While dust activity from Africa was somewhat greater than in 2005, it probably played a much smaller role than these other factors.Scott Braun, hurricane specialist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. noted that the sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean were much closer to normal this year, and considerably cooler than last year. "Sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic were unusually warm in 2005," Braun said. "Sea-surface temperature data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite showed that ocean temperatures were up to two degrees warmer in 2005. TRMM observed surface winds were persistently strong over the tropical Atlantic in 2006 while in 2005 they were somewhat weaker and more variable. The stronger winds in 2006 likely helped to keep temperatures cooler by mixing the upper layer of the ocean." The persistent winds were a key in keeping the Atlantic waters cooler than they were in 2005. As the winds kept blowing, they swept the warmer water west, and it was replaced by cooler waters from below the surface. Hurricanes need warm waters of at least 82 degrees Fahrenheit to form and strengthen. The winds prevented those warmer conditions from happening. In addition, Braun noted that those winds may have also been indicative of strong vertical winds called "shear" that rip storms apart.The Bermuda High is a fairly stationary high-pressure system that sits near Bermuda in the western Atlantic Ocean. Surface high pressure develops when air is being forced down from above. That prevents the formation of storms and usually brings sunshine to an area that sits underneath it. However, the "Bermuda High" is always strong enough to act as a guide for the path hurricanes take when they move from the eastern Atlantic and head west toward the Caribbean and the U.S. and storms go around it in a clock-wise direction.The position and the size of the Bermuda High is a key to where storms will go. In 2004 and 2005 the Bermuda High was situated more to west-southwest, so it steered systems west into the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico's warmer waters. The warmer waters fueled the storms and strengthened many storms including Katrina, Rita and Wilma in 2005. This year, 2006, the Bermuda High was smaller and shifted to the eastern Atlantic, so it turned storms like Florence, Gordon, Helene and Isaac north into cooler waters of the central Atlantic, and directed them eastward into colder waters in the North Atlantic Ocean.The current El Niño started developing in July, 2006. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists said that this hurricane season's activity was lower than expected due to the rapid development of El Niño—a periodic warming of the ocean waters in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, which influences pressure and wind patterns across the tropical Atlantic.NOAA scientists noted that the El Niño produced a sinking motion in the middle and upper atmosphere and increased wind shear in the Caribbean. Those conditions minimized thunderstorm activity from the western coast of Africa across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, and suppressed tropical storm formation. They also believe that a strong low pressure system with enhanced westerly winds in the jet stream across the eastern U.S. helped to steer hurricanes out to sea.Oceanographer Bill Patzert, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. said "Forecasting the hurricane season in the spring is a high-risk business. This is because much can happen during the summer. Over the summer of 2006, a late-developing, modest El Niño arrived to shift upper level winds. Over the past few decades these forecasts have really improved, but there is still much we don't understand about these great storms. Looking to the future, NASA and NOAA scientists are on the case and, I'm confident that more reliable forecasts are in our near future."African dust was found to "contaminate" several fledgling storm systems emerging off western Africa, according to Jeffrey Halverson, research meteorologist at the University of Baltimore County, Baltimore. Halverson participated in the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) hurricane research mission in the Cape Verde Islands off Africa's west coast this past summer. During the mission scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and universities looked at how African dust affects storms.Data from NASA's Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) that flies aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites revealed that both 2006 and 2005 had active dust storm seasons. Although 2006 was somewhat more active, and the dust played more of a role in whether or not individual storms were able to intensify, rather than limiting the overall number of storms that formed during the entire season. The dust plumes contain very dry air, and also had high wind shear (winds that blow storms apart). Both of these factors knock the proverbial wind out of a storm's sails. Halverson said that out of the 12 or so seedling storms coming off the African west coast several had a veil of dust associated with them, which hindered their development.The African dust storms happen because there's a big temperature difference over the continent, between the tropical, moist, vegetated areas in the south and the very hot, dry desert in the north. That actually helps to create some of these dust storms which can be the size of the continental U.S. and as much as 3 miles high into the atmosphere.Although the Atlantic Ocean had a near normal hurricane season in 2006, the eastern Pacific had a greater number of named storms than occurred in 2005, and more of them made landfall in Mexico.Braun said that the steering currents in the eastern Pacific were responsible for bringing several storms into Mexico in 2006. "Normally in any given year, there is some percentage of storms that turn northward into Mexico," he said. "In 2005 there were 17 storms in the Eastern Pacific, while in 2006 there were 25 storms, so there was a greater chance for more storms to steer into Mexico this year."Carlotta, John and Paul were three of the Eastern Pacific storms that affected Mexico in the 2006 season. Carlotta was a category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. She brought modest coastal rains but otherwise did not affect land. Hurricane John struck southern Baja California as a category 2 hurricane and was responsible for five deaths.Hurricane Paul was a category two hurricane over the open waters of the eastern North Pacific. Paul weakened to a tropical storm as it passed south of Baja California, then made landfall along the coast of mainland Mexico near the southern end of Isla Altamura and later dissipated inland over mainland Mexico. Paul caused significant rainfall and floods in the Mexican state of Sinaloa and was responsible for four deaths.The primary factors that made 2006 so different from 2006 were changes in sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, the developing El Niño and changes in large-scale winds like the Bermuda High. African dust is being intensively investigated and is thought to be a secondary factor that mostly affected the strengthening of storms.Although the Atlantic Ocean experienced a much calmer hurricane season in 2006 than it did in 2005, some of the factors that made it that way may or may not be in place during the 2007 season, and NASA scientists will be keeping a close eye on the Atlantic. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
January 14, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070112180300.htm | Environments Resilient In The Face Of Hurricanes, But Questions Remain | The international Estuarine Research Federation (ERF) has announced the publication of a special issue of its scientific journal, Estuaries and Coasts, focused on environmental impacts of hurricanes in coastal areas. | Estuaries and Coasts is a bimonthly scientific journal dedicated to dissemination of research about ecosystems at the land-sea interface. The hurricane special edition was published as the journal's December 2006 issue.The impetus for the special issue was the intense 2004 hurricane season, in which four major hurricanes made landfall in Florida within a three-month period, according to Holly Greening of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, one of the guest editors for the special issue. "One surprising conclusion that can be drawn from this collection of research is that natural systems are actually quite resilient in the face of these storms. While hurricanes often wreak havoc with human systems and infrastructure, many of the habitats and organisms studied rebounded quite well in the weeks and months following the 2004 storms," said Greening. "This special issue compiles research findings and results of long-term monitoring to give us a chance to look at these large, anomalous storms in the context of long-term trends," she added. The papers in the journal explore both the individual and cumulative effects of storms on coastal environments, animals, and plants, and examine the effect of these storms on coastal management. For example, water quality and phytoplankton productivity -- a measure of the health of the base of the food web -- were impacted by winds and heavy rainfall, but returned to normal within months. One study found that manatees' storm-induced movements away from their home ranges were much smaller than expected. Aquatic plants, referred to as submerged aquatic vegetation or SAV, had a more variable response to hurricane-induced stress, sometimes rebounding and sometimes exhibiting long-term damage.Damage to shoreline ecosystems varied as well. Dune erosion due to hurricanes was severe in some places but not others. In some parts of coastal Louisiana, large sections of wetlands were lost in extreme storm events."A major research goal is to use these unique data sets to develop and test a new hurricane scale for predicting the coastal impacts of extreme storms," noted issue contributor Abby Sallenger of the St. Petersburg, FL, office of the U.S. Geological Survey.These varying impacts seemed to depend, at least in part, on the characteristics of the storms themselves: direction and speed of approach, point of landfall, and intensity all made a difference in the extent of environmental damage. Storms that carried more rainfall seemed to do more long-term damage than "hit-and-run" storms with higher winds."The research compiled in this issue of Estuaries and Coasts is an excellent start in understanding the environmental impacts of these storms," said Greening, "but many questions still need to be answered. We still need to know how storm frequency and intensity, both predicted to increase in the coming years, interact to impact coastal environments and communities. Another outstanding question is the extent to which human alteration of the shoreline determines the coast's resiliency to storms."Scientists and managers contributing to the special issue represent more than 25 institutions, including the University of Florida, the University of North Carolina, the US Geological Survey, Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab, and a host of local governments. The issue is publicly available on ERF's web site, | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
January 11, 2007 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070110180949.htm | You Still Can't Drink The Water, But Now You Can Touch It | Engineers have developed a system that uses a simple water purification technique that can eliminate 100 percent of the microbes in New Orleans water samples left from Hurricane Katrina. The technique makes use of specialized resins, copper and hydrogen peroxide to purify tainted water. | The system--safer, cheaper and simpler to use than many other methods--breaks down a range of toxic chemicals. While the method cleans the water, it doesn't yet make the water drinkable. However, the method may eventually prove critical for limiting the spread of disease at disaster sites around the world.National Science Foundation-funded researchers Vishal Shah and Shreya Shah of Dowling College in Long Island, New York, collaborated with Boris Dzikovski of Cornell University and Jose Pinto of New York's Polytechnic University in Brooklyn to develop the technique. They will publish their findings in Environmental Pollution."After the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, scientists have had their backs against the wall trying to develop safeguards," said Shah. "No one knows when a similar situation may arise. We need to develop a treatment for decontaminating flood water before it either comes in contact with humans or is pumped into natural reservoirs."The treatment system that the researchers are developing is simple: a polymer sheet of resins containing copper is immersed in the contaminated flood water. The addition of hydrogen peroxide generates free radicals on the polymer. The free radicals remain bound to the sheet, where they come in contact with bacteria and kill them.The researchers are working to lower the amount of copper in the treated water end product and improving the system's impact on chemical toxins. Shah believes it could be ready for emergency use within five to seven years.To develop their process, the researchers built upon a century-old chemical mechanism called the Fenton reaction - a process wherein metal catalysts cause hydrogen peroxide to produce large numbers of free radicals.Free radicals are atoms or molecules that have an extra electron in dire need of a partner (they obtain the partner by stripping it from a nearby atom, damaging the "victim" in the process). In large quantities, the radicals can destroy toxic chemicals and even bombard bacteria to death or irreparably damage a microorganism's cell membrane.Applying their technique to water from the Industrial and 17th Street canals in New Orleans, the researchers were able to destroy all of the bacteria within 15 minutes. In tests with laboratory water samples containing even higher bacterial concentrations, the exact same process killed at least 99 percent of the bacteria in 90 minutes.The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering, with an annual budget of $5.58 billion. NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 1,700 universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000 competitive requests for funding, and makes nearly 10,000 new funding awards. The NSF also awards over $400 million in professional and service contracts yearly. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,007 |
December 30, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061211220851.htm | Innovative Satellite System Proves Worth With Better Weather Forecasts, Climate Data | Preliminary findings from a revolutionary satellite system launched earlier this year show that the system can boost the accuracy of forecasts of hurricane behavior, significantly improve long-range weather forecasts, and monitor climate change with unprecedented accuracy. | The set of six microsatellites, launched in April, is probing the atmosphere in ways that have been impossible with previous observing systems. Dubbed COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate), the system is based on a design provided by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR).Initial results show that the system's unique global coverage provides unprecedented information on the atmosphere's temperature and water vapor structure. Moreover, COSMIC data can be collected above hard-to-reach locations, such as Antarctica and the remote Pacific, which could greatly enhance the global-scale monitoring needed to analyze climate change."COSMIC may well be the most accurate, precise, and stable thermometer for measuring global and regional climate change," says UCAR president Richard Anthes. "COSMIC can see through cloud cover and gather highly accurate data through many levels of the atmosphere."COSMIC works by tracking tiny changes in the speed of GPS radio signals. Using these data, scientists can now produce vertical profiles of temperature and water vapor at more than 1,000 points over Earth each day, sampling the troposphere (the atmosphere's "weather layer," closest to Earth’s surface) and the stratosphere. By next year, some 2,500 profiles will be produced daily. Higher up, the system measures electron density in the ionosphere, an important observation for space-weather analysis and forecasting.In a test at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), scientists added COSMIC data to the other weather observations used to kick-start computer forecast models. With the help of COSMIC data, stratospheric temperature forecasts over the Northern Hemisphere improve significantly.Predictions of hurricanes and typhoons also stand to benefit from COSMIC. A test involving one of the main U.S. forecast models found that the model was able to predict the birth of this year's Hurricane Ernesto two days in advance with COSMIC data. Without the data, the model was unable to predict Ernesto's formation. Tests in Taiwan this year involving Tropical Storm Bilis and other cyclones showed that COSMIC data can reduce errors in track prediction.In Antarctica, weather forecasts that are vital to international research outposts and other activities should improve, thanks to the wealth and quality of data available through COSMIC. Radiosondes sent aloft by balloons only provide a dozen or so profiles each day above this sparsely populated region, but COSMIC provides hundreds of profiles."With COSMIC, Antarctica is no longer a data-void region," says Ying-Hwa "Bill" Kuo, director of COSMIC in UCAR's Office of Programs. "After only a few months, we see strengths and weaknesses in the forecast models that we really have had no way of seeing before."COSMIC data will also help scientists measure and predict the density of high-altitude electrons associated with damaging solar storms. The altitudes of peak electron density have been difficult to observe and predict, because forecast models have had limited data on the vertical distribution of electrons. "The many thousands of vertical profiles that COSMIC can provide each day on electron density will be extremely useful in correcting the space weather models and their predictions," says COSMIC chief scientist Christian Rocken.The $100 million COSMIC network is the product of an agreement between the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. COSMIC is known as FORMOSAT-3 in Taiwan. U.S. support for COSMIC is provided by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Office of Naval Research. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed the GPS receivers used in COSMIC. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
December 27, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061207160203.htm | Evacuation No Option For Flood In Netherland's Most Populous Area | A flood in the southern Randstad will claim thousands of victims. And evacuating the area would only save precious few lives, TU Delft researcher Bas Jonkman states in the latest edition of Delft Outlook (Delft Integraal). | If the seawalls at Den Haag and Ter Heijde are breached and the fast-flowing seawater floods the polder land behind the dikes, there will be more than 4,000 casualties, according to a new calculation method devised by TU Delft PhD candidate Bas Jonkman.Jonkman's method also reveals that evacuating this area would only save at most 600 lives. "It's possible to predict a North Sea storm a day or two in advance," Jonkman says. 'But before an evacuation could begin, the government would deliberate and everyone would have to be warned. Then, people would pack up their belongings. All this would cost a lot of time."However, in the less densely populated polder lands along the rivers, if people were warned well enough in advance of an impending flood, Jonkman's model predicts that an evacuation would indeed save many lives. For the densely populated polders bordering the coastline, Jonkman says it would be more effective for example to build stronger and higher dikes, as this would reduce the likelihood of a flood. Until now, various rules of thumb have been used to estimate the number of possible casualties resulting from a flood. Jonkman's model for estimating casualties is more precise. It consists of various parts, including a model that simulates an evacuation and thereby determines how many people would still be in the area if the dike were breached. Determining how many of these people would survive is dependent on how fast the water flows, how fast the water rises and how deep the water is. To make such predictions, Jonkman uses a model that was developed by TU Delft and the research institute WL Delft Hydraulics. Jonkman combined the models to simulate the evacuation and the course of the flood.The majority of Jonkman's doctoral research was devoted to devising the so-called 'victim functions'. 'If the water is four meters deep, then 20 percent of the people in that area would not survive', is an example of how this function works. For the victim functions, Jonkman based his data on the calamitous flood in the Netherlands in 1953 and other such disasters. To determine if his model's findings were realistic, Jonkman also processed data from the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, when the dikes protecting New Orleans were breached. Jonkman's model calculated 2,000 victims for that disaster – a figure that Jonkman is pleased with: "This is of the same order of magnitude as the 1,100 bodies that have actually been recovered so far."An in-depth article about this research subject has been published in the latest edition of Delft Integraal / Delft Outlook, the independent science magazine of TU Delft. ( | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
December 23, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212091613.htm | NASA Diagnoses Tropical Storm Gert's Growth Spurt | Scientists want to know how a tropical cyclone develops from a weak tropical depression into a tropical storm. To answer that question, NASA and other scientists flew over and through storms in 2005 and obtained and combined data that let them see the storm in four dimensions. | They found that a burst of rapidly rising air (convection), a weak wind shear (winds that vary with height that can blow a storm apart), and the ocean surface temperature all played an important role in Tropical Storm Gert's origination and strengthening.In July 2005, during the Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission field experiments, scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and universities boarded hurricane research planes and flew over and into Tropical Storm Gert near eastern Mexico. From the aircraft they dropped sensors called "dropsondes" into the storm. They also observed Gert by satellite and ran computer models with the data they gathered from the dropsondes and satellites to re-create the storm inside and outside.Zhaoxia Pu, assistant professor in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Utah, led the study. "By recreating the storm on a computer model as a four-dimensional structure -- height, width, depth and over time -- it will help us understand the mechanisms of storm development," Pu said. Xuanli Li, a graduate student at University of Utah, and Pu conducted a study to identify the factors that affect the storm's development.In addition to the dropsonde information, they used satellite data from NASA's QuikSCAT satellite for winds; the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite data on precipitation; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) for movement of the atmosphere, into a computer model. Their purpose was to produce a very detailed view in both space and time of the evolution of tropical storm Gert throughout its life cycle. Tropical storms and hurricanes travel over large areas during their life cycle and are influenced by many factors. With the computer simulation of Gert, scientists are getting a much more detailed look at what may lead to those changes, whether it's a change in air temperature or the direction or strength winds are blowing at different levels of the atmosphere. "By combining the satellite and dropsonde data and creating high-resolution computer model simulations, we were able to reveal the major structural features as they evolved in Gert," said Li. "The computer simulation accurately captured the rapid increase in the upward motion of the air (convection) inside Gert when the storm strengthened from a tropical depression to a tropical storm." said Li. "We expect that our understanding of tropical storm development will be improved through these types of comprehensive datasets obtained from field observations and high-resolution computer model analysis," said Edward Zipser, a co-author and lead scientist on NASA's African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Activities (NAMMA) 2006 Atlantic Ocean hurricane mission. Gert began as a low pressure area that formed in the Gulf of Honduras just east of Chetumal, Mexico on July 22. The low quickly moved inland over Yucatan and organized into a tropical depression on July 23. The next day, the depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Gert. The computer model re-created Gert's life cycle from July 22 to July 25. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
December 19, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061212091634.htm | Aircraft Captures Windy Details In Hurricane's Ups And Downs | Researchers employing some of the world's most sophisticated weather research equipment recently captured details on winds and other conditions in a rapidly intensifying hurricane. This data will help to advance the understanding of these complex storms. | While meteorologists have made considerable strides in forecasting a hurricane's track, intensity predictions have remained a more elusive challenge. Part of the difficulty is that the many factors that control intensity, particularly the speed, direction and spin of air throughout the atmosphere, are constantly changing and tricky to measure. Aircraft are able to gather detailed, precise measurements of winds in a hurricane that can help researchers understand what is going on inside the storm, allowing better forecasts to be made. In July 2005, Hurricane Dennis experienced several periods of rapid intensity fluctuations, providing for several excellent opportunities to learn about tropical cyclone behavior. Dennis reached hurricane strength on July 7, 2005, in the eastern Caribbean Sea, and rapidly strengthened into a category 4 storm before making landfall in Cuba on July 8. After weakening considerably as the storm moved over Cuba, Dennis attained category 4 hurricane status again with a pressure drop of 11 millibars in under two hours, indicative of rapid intensification. A typical low-pressure system in the United States might intensify that much over the course of an entire day. Flying over Hurricane Dennis with NASA's ER-2 aircraft and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) P-3 aircraft, scientists gathered data on the storm's internal structure, including the distribution of winds, rainfall, temperature and moisture. The aircraft information has provided insight into the evolution of a hurricane's warm inner core; one of the many factors that impact storm development. The research flights were conducted as part of the Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission in Costa Rica, a NASA field experiment with cooperative participation from NOAA and several universities. This experiment was aimed at studying the birthing conditions for tropical storms and hurricanes and identifying the factors that cause them to strengthen or weaken. "This campaign was particularly unique because two types of aircraft provided measurements on different atmospheric variables," said Joe Turk of the Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, Calif. "The information is also being used to determine how accurately satellites capture storm details." The aircraft data provide high resolution measurements with a level of detail far superior to current weather satellites. During the mission, the NASA ER-2 aircraft flew over Dennis at 65,000 feet while taking scientific measurements that probed downward through the cloud layers. At times, the NOAA P-3 flew identical and coordinated patterns, but from an altitude of 12,000 feet, probing the storm from the inside. As the hurricane fluctuated in intensity, flights into the storm continued, taking critical measurements of wind, temperature, and moisture. "The erratic nature of the storm and the timing of the research mission allowed scientists to pierce through the core of the hurricane at many stages of its life cycle and for the first time map a hurricane's entire evolution," said Steve Guimond of Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla. NASA's ER-2 Doppler radar measured wind speed along the track of the aircraft including measurements indicative of the size and concentration of raindrops and ice particles, while another ER-2 instrument, the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer, gathered microwave imagery of the internal structure of rain clouds. By analyzing when and where strong winds are occurring, researchers can better determine when intensity changes may occur. Data on the storm's vertical temperature structure - indirectly related to wind speed and rainfall - was also examined from overpasses of NASA and NOAA satellites. These key aircraft observations not only assist in understanding the rapid intensification of hurricanes, they can also help scientists recreate storms on computer models that are used in forecasting. Just small changes in wind speed and direction patterns can significantly rearrange a storm's rain and wind structure, altering the evolution of its predicted track and intensity. Previous research has suggested that rapid hurricane intensification, like that seen in Dennis, is associated with "hot towers." These are columns of rapidly rising air that reach and in some cases overshoot the top of the troposphere - the lowest layer of the atmosphere - about nine miles high in the tropics. They are called "hot" because of the large amount of heat they release through condensation of water vapor, providing fuel for strong winds and heavy rainfall. "With Dennis, it appears the hot towers played a major role in the rapid intensification of the storm, giving clues on how energy is concentrated and winds evolve at various stages of development," said Guimond. "The observations also helped place the storm's behavior in greater context and matched well with computer model simulations, suggesting that we are making progress in replicating hurricane development." "Improved knowledge of how both the heating and rotation or 'spin' of air parcels associated with these hot towers interacts with the greater organized system is thought to be another key ingredient to improving hurricane intensity forecasts," said Steve Miller of the Naval Research Laboratory. "While our preliminary findings based on satellite views of Dennis support the idea that such physical links may in fact exist, additional insight requires the kind of three-dimensional detailed perspective on internal storm structure that is only available in a field experiment, such as the TCSP mission." As researchers identify other factors most critical in hurricane development, those elements can be targeted for increased observation in future field missions to obtain the big pieces of the puzzle needed to solve the mysteries of hurricane behavior. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
December 18, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061218130705.htm | 2006 Is Sixth Warmest Year On Record, Estimates Show | The global mean surface temperature in 2006 is currently estimated to be + 0.42°C above the 1961-1990 annual average (14°C/57.2°F), according to the records maintained by Members of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2006 is currently estimated to be the sixth warmest year on record. Final figures will not be released until March 2007. | Averaged separately for both hemispheres, 2006 surface temperatures for the northern hemisphere (0.58°C above 30-year mean of 14.6°C/58.28°F) are likely to be the fourth warmest and for the southern hemisphere (0.26°C above 30-year mean of 13.4°C/56.12°F), the seventh warmest in the instrumental record from 1861 to the present.Since the start of the 20th century, the global average surface temperature has risen approximately 0.7°C. But this rise has not been continuous. Since 1976, the global average temperature has risen sharply, at 0.18°C per decade. In the northern and southern hemispheres, the period 1997-2006 averaged 0.53°C and 0.27°C above the 1961-1990 mean, respectively.The beginning of 2006 was unusually mild in large parts of North America and the western European Arctic islands, though there were harsh winter conditions in Asia, the Russian Federation and parts of eastern Europe. Canada experienced its mildest winter and spring on record, the USA its warmest January-September on record and the monthly temperatures in the Arctic island of Spitsbergen (Svalbard Lufthavn) for January and April included new highs with anomalies of +12.6°C and +12.2°C, respectively.Persistent extreme heat affected much of eastern Australia from late December 2005 until early March with many records being set (e.g. second hottest day on record in Sydney with 44.2°C/111.6°F on 1 January). Spring 2006 (September-November) was Australia's warmest since seasonal records were first compiled in 1950. Heat waves were also registered in Brazil from January until March (e.g. 44.6°C/112.3°F in Bom Jesus on 31 January -- one of the highest temperatures ever recorded in Brazil).Several parts of Europe and the USA experienced heat waves with record temperatures in July and August. Air temperatures in many parts of the USA reached 40°C/104°F or more. The July European-average land-surface air temperature was the warmest on record at 2.7°C above the climatological normal.Autumn 2006 (September-November) was exceptional in large parts of Europe at more than 3°C warmer than the climatological normal from the north side of the Alps to southern Norway. In many countries it was the warmest autumn since official measurements began: records in central England go back to 1659 (1706 in The Netherlands and 1768 in Denmark).Long-term drought continued in parts of the Greater Horn of Africa including parts of Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and the United Republic of Tanzania. At least 11 million people were affected by food shortages; Somalia was hit by the worst drought in a decade.For many areas in Australia, the lack of adequate rainfall in 2006 added to significant longer-term dry conditions, with large regions having experienced little recovery from the droughts of 2002-2003 and 1997-1998. Dry conditions have now persisted for 5 to 10 years in some areas and in south-west Western Australia for around 30 years.Across the USA, moderate-to-exceptional drought persisted throughout parts of the south-west desert and eastward through the southern plains, also developing in areas west of the Great Lakes. Drought and anomalous warmth contributed to a record wildfire season for the USA, with more than 3.8 million hectares burned through early December. Drought in the south of Brazil caused significant damage to agriculture in the early part of the year with losses of about 11 per cent estimated for the soybean crop yield alone.Severe drought conditions also affected China. Millions of hectares of crops were damaged in Sichuan province during summer and in eastern China in autumn. Significant economic losses as well as severe shortages in drinking water were other consequences.As the 2005/2006 rainy season was ending, most countries in southern Africa were experiencing satisfactory rainfall during the first quarter of 2006. In northern Africa, floods were recorded in Morocco and Algeria during 2006 causing infrastructure damage and some casualties. Rare heavy rainfall in the Sahara Desert region of Tindouf produced severe flooding in February damaging 70 per cent of food stocks and displacing 60 000 people. In Bilma, Niger, the highest rainfall since 1923 affected nearly 50 000 people throughout August. In the same month, the most extensive precipitation in 50 years brought significant agricultural losses to the region of Zinder, Niger. Heavy rain also caused devastating floods in Ethiopia in August, claiming more than 600 lives. Some of the worst floods occurred in Dire Dawa and along the swollen Omo River. Again in October and November, the Great Horn of Africa countries experienced heavy rainfall associated with severe flooding. The worst hit areas were in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Somalia is undergoing its worst flooding in recent history; some places have received more than six times their average monthly rainfall and hundreds of thousands of people have been affected. This year's floods are said to be the worst in 50 years in the Great Horn of Africa region. The heavy rains followed a period of long-lasting drought and the dry ground was unable to soak up large amounts of rainfall.Heavy rainfall in Bolivia and Equador in the first months of the year caused severe floods and landslides with tens of thousands of people affected. Torrential rainfall in Suriname during early May produced the country's worst disaster in recent times.After 500 mm of torrential rainfall during a five-day period in February, a large-scale landslide occurred in Leyte Island, the Philippines with more than 1 000 casualties. Although close to average in total rainfall, the Indian monsoon season brought many heavy rainfall events with the highest rainfall in 24-hours ever recorded in several locations.Only months after the destructive summer flooding in eastern Europe in 2005, heavy rainfall and snowmelt produced extensive flooding along the River Danube in April and the river reached its highest level in more than a century. Areas of Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Serbia were the hardest hit with hundreds of thousands of hectares inundated and tens of thousands of people affected.Persistent and heavy rainfall during 10-15 May brought historic flooding to New England (USA), described as the worst in 70 years in some areas. Across the US mid-Atlantic and north-east, exceptionally heavy rainfall occurred in June. Numerous daily and monthly records were set and the rainfall caused widespread flooding which forced the evacuation of some 200 000 people. Vancouver in Canada experienced its wettest month ever in November with 351 mm, nearly twice the average monthly accumulation.Conditions in the equatorial Pacific from December 2005 until the first quarter of 2006 showed some patterns typically associated with La Niña events. These however, did not lead to a basin-wide La Niña and, during April, even weak La Niña conditions dissipated. Over the second quarter of 2006, the majority of atmospheric and oceanic indicators reflected neutral conditions but, in August, conditions in the central and western equatorial Pacific started resembling typical early stages of an El Niño event (see WMO Press Release 765). By the end of the year, positive sea-surface temperature anomalies were established across the tropical Pacific basin. The El Niño event is expected by global consensus to continue at least into the first quarter of 2007.In the north-west Pacific, 22 tropical cyclones developed (average 27), 14 of which classified as typhoons. Typhoons Chanchu, Prapiroon, Kaemi, Saomai, Xangsane, Cimaron and tropical storm Bilis brought deaths, casualties and severe damage to the region. Landed tropical cyclones caused more than 1 000 fatalities and economic losses of US $ 10 billion in China, which made 2006 the severest year in a decade. Typhoon Durian affected some 1.5 million people in the Philippines in November/December 2006, claiming more than 500 lives with hundreds still missing. During the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season, nine named tropical storms developed (average: ten). Five of the named storms were hurricanes (average six) and two of those were "major" hurricanes (category three or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale). In the eastern North Pacific 19 named storms developed, which is well above the average of 16; eleven reached hurricane strength of which six attained "major" status.Twelve tropical cyclones developed in the Australian Basin, two more than the long-term average. Tropical cyclone Larry was the most intense at landfall in Queensland since 1918, destroying 80-90 per cent of the Australian banana crop.On 25 September, the maximum area of the 2006 ozone hole over the Antarctic was recorded at 29.5 million km², slightly larger than the previous record area of 29.4 million km² reached in September 2000. These values are so similar that the ozone holes of these two years could be judged of equal size. The size and persistence of the 2006 ozone hole area with its ozone mass deficit of 40.8 megatonnes (also a record) can be explained by the continuing presence of near-peak levels of ozone-depleting substances in combination with a particularly cold stratospheric winter. Low temperatures in the first part of January prompted a 20 per cent loss in the ozone layer over the Arctic in 2006 (see WMO Press Release 760). Milder temperatures from late January precluded the large ozone loss seen in 2005.The year 2006 continues the pattern of sharply decreasing Arctic sea ice. The average sea-ice extent for the entire month of September was 5.9 million km², the second lowest on record missing the 2005 record by 340 000 km². Including 2006, the September rate of sea ice decline is now approximately -8.59% per decade, or 60 421 km² per year.This preliminary information for 2006 is based on observations up to the end of November from networks of land-based weather stations, ships and buoys. The data are collected and disseminated on a continuing basis by the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of WMO Members. However, the declining state of some observational platforms in some parts of the world is of concern.It should be noted that, following established practice, WMO's global temperature analyses are based on two different datasets. One is the combined dataset maintained by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office, and the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK. The other is maintained by the US Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Results from these two datasets are comparable: both indicate that 2006 is likely to be the sixth warmest year globally.More extensive updated information will be made available in the annual WMO Statement on the Status of the Global Climate in 2006, to be published in early March 2007.This is a joint Press Release issued in collaboration with the Hadley Centre of the Met Office, UK, the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, UK and in the USA: NOAA's National Climatic Data Centre, National Environmental Satellite and Data Information Service and NOAA's National Weather Service. Other contributors are WMO Member countries: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, India, Ireland, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Mauritius, Morocco, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland. The African Centre of Meteorological Applications for Development (ACMAD) also contributed. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
December 8, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061207163717.htm | Graduate Students Study Links Between African And U.S. Weather Systems | When their DC-8 flew into a tropical storm off the coast of West Africa, Aaron Pratt and Tamara Battle realized their lifelong dream--to study storms and weather systems at their source. During that flight, lightning struck their plane. The resulting storm turned into a tropical depression and ultimately became known as Hurricane Helene, one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes in 2006. | Pratt and Battle were thrilled. They, along with Stephen Chan, Amber Reynolds, Daniel Robertson and Deanne Grant, spent a month conducting weather research in Senegal and Cape Verde, West Africa. The students worked with scientists from universities and government agencies to study how land storms become ocean storms and then make their way west to U.S. and Caribbean waters."African dust is very critical for hurricane formation. One of our flights allowed us to see the dust kicked up in the Sahara Desert," said Pratt, who is pursuing a doctorate in atmospheric science from Howard University in Washington, D.C. "I had never done research overseas before and didn't know what to expect. Working with scientists in both Senegal and Cape Verde helped put our research in the proper perspective."Battle is also a doctoral candidate in atmospheric science at Howard University. "When we flew over the Sahara Desert, it was serene and beautifully simple," she said. "Africa's easterly waves and Saharan dust storms not only impact the weather in the United States and the Caribbean, but they also have implications for the inhabitants of many African countries. By sharing what we've learned, we increase the chances of helping those countries improve forecasting and predictability. That will have a positive impact on the agriculture and economy of the region."Howard University received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the American students' work with a large multinational team of scientists on a project called African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA). Scientists and students from around the world are involved with the project, which is also funded by nations in Africa, Europe and Asia.The students worked in the air and on the ground. The flights originated in Cape Verde and investigated easterly waves, developing tropical cyclones, Saharan dust outbreaks, convection and cloud microphysics. In Senegal, the students used advanced equipment to track precipitation, predict rainfall and measure air pressure."NSF's international office funds projects that give U.S. researchers and students the opportunity to conduct top-notch research while working with international collaborators," said Elizabeth (Libby) Lyons, regional program coordinator for Africa, the Near East and South Asia in NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering. "These kinds of projects help develop a cadre of globally-engaged U.S. scientists and engineers who know how to work with international colleagues and who understand the context in which the research takes place and the impact of its results."Not only did the students contribute to science in a developing country, they also interacted with villagers in a high-profile field campaign. "This project allowed them to get the first crack at the data and work with top-notch scientists from many nations" said Gregory Jenkins, director of Howard University's Program in Atmospheric Sciences. "The overall experience will make these students better scientists . Throughout their stay in West Africa, they were cognizant of Hurricane Katrina's impacts and how their work might help the United States."To adapt to their immersion in another culture, the students learned basic Wolof, Senegal's national language, and worked in Kawsara, a village approximately 30 miles southeast of the capital city Dakar. Throughout their stay, they learned to adapt to frequent outages of electricity."The logistics were the most challenging part of the project," said Stephen Chan, a graduate student at the University of Virginia. "We took daily trips to the gas station to stock up on gasoline for the generator, and eventually we had to repair the generator because it broke down. But the Senegalese people were always creative and unwilling to quit until a solution was found." The AMMA project was Chan's first field research.Amber Reynolds, a graduate student at Texas A & M University, plans to return to West Africa in 2007 to work in Dakar. "I'm trying to keep my Wolof skills up-to-date by talking with Senegalese students who attend Texas A&M," Reynolds said. " I learned so much about culture and science. I'm excited to return and continue my research."The students will present a project overview and initial findings at the annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society in January 2007. In addition to pursuing research for their respective degrees, they also will develop publications in collaboration with their Senegalese colleagues. Challenged by sporadic electricity, the students wanted to learn about solar panels and wind power and may explore whether either alternative could provide basic electricity and water to the local communities they visited."It is extremely important for African-American and West African scientists to forge a link in science, just as we are already linked in history," Pratt said. "I will cherish this experience, my first international research experience, and I'll work to make sure this is a beginning of great things, for myself, for Howard University, Senegal, and Cape Verde."The students' research was funded by NSF's Office of International Science and Engineering and the Division of Atmospheric Sciences. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
November 4, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061103145913.htm | Heckuva Job: Computer Model To Predict Organizational Response To Disasters | By studying the organizational culture of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the United States Coast Guard, as well as each organization’s response to last year’s Hurricane Katrina, a team of researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has begun to develop a dynamic model of organizational processes with the capacity to predict how an organization’s culture will affect its ability to respond to an extreme event. | In the wake of Katrina, a category 5 hurricane that devastated much of the nation’s Gulf Coast region in August 2005, three Rensselaer students traveled to New Orleans to collect paperwork, e-mails, reviews, assessments, and other documents that could provide them with information about how each organization reacted to any given task during the disaster. The recovered paper trail also provided the researchers with insight into a variety of cultural and organizational characteristics that impacted both agencies’ ability to act during the disaster.Throughout the group’s research, a vast dichotomy between the cultures of FEMA and the Coast Guard became increasingly evident, according to William “Al” Wallace, professor of decision sciences and engineering systems (DSES) at Rensselaer, and principal investigator on the project. The researchers believe these cultural factors ultimately dictated how well each organization was able to carry out its function and responsibilities. “FEMA’s fatalist culture, coupled with the loss of its cabinet-level position and budget and rulemaking authority, crippled the agency’s ability to fulfill its normal repertoire of emergency coordination and response during Katrina,” says Wallace. “On the other hand, the Coast Guard had undergone minimal organizational changes and had its pre-existing routines supported, thus it was better equipped to fulfill its duties during the disaster. Additionally, because of the Coast Guard’s hierarchical culture, action orders continually disseminated through the organization’s chain of command to the response team.” Today Wallace is leading a team of researchers to construct a computer simulation that models an extreme disaster situation – similar to that of Hurricane Katrina – where decision-makers are forced to shift their attention from one dimension to another, responses often play out over long durations of time, and information demands vary between interacting response organizations.They’ll then input a series of “what if” scenarios related to organizational structure and culture into the disaster model. Algorithms, or automated reasoning, will predict how each organization’s constraints would affect its ability to effectively react to an emergency. The organizational factors observed by the researchers while studying FEMA and the Coast Guard will be used to test the model and to set the parameters.“Essentially, the model will be able to determine how well an organization will respond to a disaster based on the rules it is following and its organizational structure,” says Wallace, who warns that the device is not a scenario generator. “It won’t tell you ‘if you have a disaster and you don’t get enough ice to the victims in time, this will happen.’ Instead it will say ‘if you institute these rules and a disaster happens, you will succeed or you will fail.’”Wallace sees the model as a diagnostic tool that could help local, state, and federal governments shed light on the vulnerability of certain organizational features. It could also aid in the development of more flexible, responsive approaches to risk management, which is key to improving organizational responses to extreme events, according to the researchers.“When a group of people are ingrained in an organization, it can be difficult to identify the day-to-day operations or procedures that could potentially become roadblocks when responding to certain situations,” Wallace says. “This model will be a tool for organizations to study and reflect on the ways their culture affects their ability to function.”Two University of Washington researchers, Peter May and Bryan Jones, serve as co-principal investigators on the project, which also will consider how states assign risk priorities, and how the federal government influences those priorities. Other researchers include: Rachel Dowty and Colin Beech, two doctoral candidates in the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at Rensselaer, and Yao Zheng, a senior in mechanical and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer.Rensselaer’s portion of the collaborative research is funded by a three-year $299,578 National Science Foundation (NSF) Human and Social Dynamics (HSD) grant. An NSF Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) funded the Rensselaer team’s initial travel to New Orleans. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
October 29, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061023192524.htm | Global Warming And Your Health | Global warming could do more to hurt your health than simply threaten summertime heat stroke, says a public health physician. Although heat related illnesses and deaths will increase with the temperatures, climate change is expected to also attack human health with dirtier air and water, more flood-related accidents and injuries, threats to food supplies, hundreds of millions of environmental refugees, and stress on and possible collapse of many ecosystems that now purify our air and water. | "When most people think about climate change, they think of heat stress from heat waves," said Cindy Parker, M.D., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. "The heat wave in Western Europe in 2003 killed in excess of 30,000 people who wouldn't have died otherwise. With climate change, heat waves will become more severe, and last for longer periods of time." "Scientists (in the U.S.) haven't done a good job of communicating why climate change is important to regular people," said Parker, who was invited to give a presentation on the health hazards of global warming at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Philadelphia. Parker will speak in a Pardee Keynote Symposium on Sunday, 22 October. "The other thing that has gotten a lot of media attention is the increased risk of infectious diseases," said Parker. "This is of greater concern to other parts of the world than the United States." That's because the U.S. has good public health systems that can track down infectious diseases, such as malaria, and intervene so they don't spread, she said. "In my professional opinion, some of the less direct impacts will be much more devastating for us," said Parker. Hurricane Katrina was a primer on the matter. Global warming will bring bigger storms and hurricanes that will hold more water, according to climate scientists. Katrina showed how the water from a hurricane does far more damage than the high winds. All that flooding brings with it a host of direct and indirect health problems. "As we saw from New Orleans, we're not good at evacuating people during storms." What's worse, she said, you can't evacuate critical infrastructure. "Our biggest medical centers have been built in our larger cities."Thirteen of the 20 largest cities on earth are located at sea level on coasts, Parker points out. "As sea level rises, there go our medical institutions, water treatment plants, emergency response units such as fire departments and ambulances. The bulk of the services designed to keep us healthy are almost all located in our larger cities, which are also located frequently at sea level."Then there is the matter of water. Clean water is one of the most basic and critical health needs. But climate change is threatening water supply quantities in many areas as well as water quality. "Even without climate change, water is already in short supply," said Parker. "But under changed climate conditions, precipitation patterns are expected to change." That means droughts and famines could become more prominent. Worsening water quality is expected to go hand-in-hand with the continuing deterioration of the natural ecosystems all around us. "We rely on our ecosystems to provide very basic services to us," Parker explained. "Despite our technology, we can't live without clean water, clean air, and soil to produce food. We rely on healthy ecosystems to provide these basic and absolute necessities." Forests, for example, absorb carbon dioxide from the environment, photosynthesize, and release oxygen as a waste product, which is essential for animal life. Similarly, with water, a healthy ecosystem such as a forest or wetland can filter a lot of toxins out of water and provide us with clean drinking water. Water supplies and water quality are already major health problems worldwide. In most years, drought and famine cause more than half of all deaths from natural disasters. Already 1.8 million people, mostly children, die each year from diarrheal diseases caused by contaminated water. Climate change will just make this worse, Parker says. Another absolute and basic need is, of course, food. That's also facing trouble, says Parker. Climate change will bring huge changes to how we grow food. Studies are mounting that show crops are likely to be more negatively affected by climate change than previously thought. "We need to steel ourselves from changes and, quite likely, reductions in food supplies from around the world."All these changes, plus displacements of millions of people as was seen after Hurricane Katrina, pose health threats for everyone. But the most vulnerable members of our societies will be hardest hit, such as children, elders, city dwellers, and those who are socio-economically disadvantaged, says Parker. Planning for these threats and taking measures to minimize impacts is happening much too slowly, she said. "These measures don't necessarily require a lot of money and we already have the new technology," she said. "I'm a preventive medicine physician, and I use that training and way of thinking with respect to climate change as well. It makes a whole lot more sense to me to prevent our climate from more instability rather than waiting and putting our research and resources into trying to fix problems after they've happened." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
October 28, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061025180408.htm | NASA Looks At Sea Level Rise, Hurricane Risks To New York City | New York City has been an area of concern during hurricane season for many years because of the large population and logistics. More than 8 million people live in the city, and it has hundreds of miles of coastline that are vulnerable to hurricane threats. Using computer climate models, scientists at NASA have looked at rising sea levels and hurricane storm surge and will report on them at a science meeting this week. | Cynthia Rosenzweig and Vivien Gornitz are scientists on a team at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University, New York City, investigating future climate change impacts in the metropolitan area. Gornitz and other NASA scientists have been working with the New York City Department (DEP) of Environmental Protection since 2004, by using computer models to simulate future climates and sea level rise. Recently, computer modeling studies have provided a more detailed picture of sea level rise around New York by the 2050's.During most of the twentieth century, sea levels around the world have been steadily rising by 1.7 to 1.8 mm (~0.07 in) per year, increasing to nearly 3 mm (0.12 in) per year within just the last decade. Most of this rise in sea level comes from warming of the world's oceans and melting of mountain glaciers, which have receded dramatically in many places since the early twentieth century. The 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that a global warming of 1.4° to 5.8° C (2.5° -10.4° F) could lead to a sea level rise of 0.09-0.88 meters (4 inches to 2.9 feet) by 2100.A study conducted by Columbia University scientists for the U.S. Global Change Research Program in 2001 looked at several impacts of climate change on the New York metropolitan area, including sea level rise. The researchers projected a rise in sea level of 11.8 to 37.5 inches in New York City and 9.5 to 42.5 inches in the metropolitan region by the 2080s."With sea level at these higher levels, flooding by major storms would inundate many low-lying neighborhoods and shut down the entire metropolitan transportation system with much greater frequency," said Gornitz. With sea level rise, New York City faces an increased risk of hurricane storm surge. Storm surge is an above normal rise in sea level accompanying a hurricane. Hurricanes are categorized on the Saffir-Simpson scale, from 1 to 5, with 5 being the strongest and most destructive. The scale is used to give an estimate of the potential property damage and flooding expected along the coast from a hurricane landfall. Wind speed is the determining factor in the scale, as storm surge values are highly dependent on the slope of the continental shelf and the shape of the coastline, in the landfall region.A recent study by Rosenzweig and Gornitz in 2005 and 2006 using the GISS Atmosphere-Ocean Model global climate model for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects a sea level rise of 15 to 19 inches by the 2050s in New York City. Adding as little as 1.5 feet of sea level rise by the 2050s to the surge for a category 3 hurricane on a worst-case track would cause extensive flooding in many parts of the city. Areas potentially under water include the Rockaways, Coney Island, much of southern Brooklyn and Queens, portions of Long Island City, Astoria, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens, lower Manhattan, and eastern Staten Island from Great Kills Harbor north to the Verrazano Bridge. Gornitz will present these findings at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Philadelphia during the week of Oct. 23.To understand what hurricane storm surges would do to the city, surge levels for hurricanes of categories 1 through 4 were calculated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the 1995 Metro New York Hurricane Transportation Study using NOAA's SLOSH computer model. SLOSH (Sea, Lake and Overland Surges from Hurricanes) is a computerized model run by the National Hurricane Center to estimate storm surge heights resulting from historical, hypothetical, or predicted hurricanes by taking into account pressure; size, forward speed, track and hurricane winds. According to the 1995 study, a category three hurricane on a worst-case track could create a surge of up to 25 feet at JFK Airport, 21 feet at the Lincoln Tunnel entrance, 24 feet at the Battery, and 16 feet at La Guardia Airport. These figures do not include the effects of tides nor the additional heights of waves on top of the surge. Some studies suggest that hurricane strengths may intensify in most parts of the world as oceans become warmer. However, how much more frequently they will occur is still highly uncertain. Hurricanes have hit New York City in the past. The strongest hurricane was a category four storm at its peak in the Caribbean, which made landfall at Jamaica Bay on Sept. 3, 1821 with a 13-foot storm surge. It caused widespread flooding in lower Manhattan. The "Long Island Express" or "Great Hurricane of 1938," a category three, tracked across central Long Island and ripped into southern New England on Sept. 21, 1938, killing nearly 700 people. The storm pushed a 25-35 foot high wall of water ahead of it, sweeping away protective barrier dunes and buildings. The 1995 Transportation study was done to assess the vulnerability of the city's transportation system to hurricane surges. The 2001 Columbia study was one of the regional studies for the U.S. National Assessment of Climate Variability and Change; the recent study for the NYC DEP was to evaluate potential climate change impacts, including sea level rise, on the agency's mandated activities and infrastructure."This entire work is solutions oriented," said Rosenzweig. "It's about helping NYC DEP and other New York City agencies make better preparations for climate extremes of today, and changing extremes of the future. The report will help us determine how can we do better job now, as well as in the future." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
October 18, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061013202010.htm | Are Artificial Barriers Aiding Proliferation Of Invasive Aquatic Vegetation? | Habitat modifications are among mankind's most pervasive alterations of our nation's estuarine ecosystems. When such modifications are extensive, as is the case for the Mobile Bay Causeway, they can alter patterns of natural hydrography. Among the possible consequences of the Causeway is the reduction of water exchange between the fresh water in the lower reaches of Mobile-Tensaw Delta, and the saltier waters of the Gulf of Mexico. If true, this barrier may have created persistent low salinity conditions that local conservationists believe have provided refuge for an exotic species of submerged aquatic vegetation, the Eurasian Milfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum) to survive in during periods when salinity is high throughout this estuary. | When salinity is low, milfoil fragments from these freshwater refuges end up in nearby estuarine grassbeds, where they subsequently outgrow and competitively displace native submerged grasses. To test these hypotheses, Dr. John Valentine and Marine Technician Susan Sklenar, both of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) in Alabama, are currently comparing the results of salinity tolerance experiments they have conducted using milfoil at the DISL with two years of field data which document salinity patterns within the upper reaches of Mobile Bay. The preliminary results of these experiments suggest that only the most extreme salinities, those observed during hurricane landfalls in the northern Gulf of Mexico, are lethal to milfoil. "Right after Hurricane Katrina, we noticed that milfoil was not as abundant in those places where it used to be plentiful," recounts Dr. Valentine. "Whether it was the turbidity from the storm or the salinity from waters crashing over the MBC, we're hoping these experiments will be able to help determine the cause." In the coming year, Dr. Valentine and his colleagues will be conducting additional field experiments to determine if in fact milfoil will outcompete native grasses for habitat within this estuary. It is hoped that these experiments, when completed, will allow DISL to make data-based recommendations for habitat restoration later next year. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
October 17, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061012184656.htm | NASA'S Live Tropical Sea Surface Temperature Web Site Gives Climate, Hurricane Clues | Sea surface temperatures give scientists information about ocean currents, climate, climate change and how a hurricane may evolve. Now, NASA has a web page that provides frequent updates on changing ocean temperatures. | There are two primary types of sea surface temperature data that scientists use. The first is the actual temperature readings from the ocean water surface. The second is called a sea surface temperature anomaly that compares present temperatures to the long-term average.Visualizers at NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. have created two products. The first is a daily update of actual sea surface temperatures. Whenever clouds in the satellite data block the sea surface, the product interpolates the data. Interpolation is a calculation method for estimating data in regions that fall between points of actual measurement.The second product is a 10-day average of sea surface temperatures over specific areas. This 10-day average helps to show or calculate the temperature anomaly. "Climate and weather are great dances between the oceans and the global atmosphere," says Bill Patzert, climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Sea surface temperature changes control whether these dances are slow and graceful, as with climate, or stormy and violent, as with wild hurricanes and winter storms. Floods, droughts, hurricanes or balmy weather can often be foretold by shifting sea surface temperatures. Sea surface temperatures are a crystal ball that helps us see and plan for the future."The web page graphics are the result of data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Big climate events like El Nino and La Nina in the eastern Pacific Ocean are directly related to ocean temperatures and can be seen in the sea surface temperature anomaly product. If the Eastern Pacific ocean temperatures deviate from average, this product will show that. El Nino and La Nina are also connected to changes in air pressure systems. In a normal year, steady winds blow westward and push warm surface water toward the western Pacific Ocean. In contrast, during an El Niño year, weakened winds allow warm water to occupy the entire tropical Pacific, so scientists look at sea surface temperatures for a signal of El Nino's return. Usually sea surface temperature readings off South America's west coast range from 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (15-21 degrees Celsius), while they exceed 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) in the "warm pool" located in the central and western Pacific. Rainfall tends to follow the warm water eastward, causing drought in Indonesia and Australia and also altering the path of the jet stream - a region of strong winds high in the atmosphere - that helps control weather patterns and storm paths. La Niña is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the central Equatorial Pacific. Sea-surface temperatures along the equator can fall as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) below normal. During La Niña, the easterly trade winds strengthen and cold upwelling - the transport of colder, deeper waters to the ocean's surface - intensifies along the equator and the West coast of South America. Like her counterpart El Nino, La Nina also changes weather patterns around the world.La Niña tends to bring nearly opposite effects of El Niño to the United States -- wetter than normal conditions across the Pacific Northwest and drier and warmer than normal conditions across much of the southern tier. Both La Niña and El Niño tend to have the most profound influence in the winter. During El Niño years, temperatures in the winter are typically warmer than normal in the North-Central States, and cooler than normal in the Southeast and the Southwest. During a La Niña year, winter temperatures are warmer than normal in the Southeast and cooler than normal in the Northwest.Hurricane forecasters rely on daily sea surface temperatures to determine the behavior of tropical cyclones, the general name for tropical depressions, tropical storms, typhoons and hurricanes. Sea surface temperatures must be at least 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 degrees Celsius) for a tropical cyclone to develop and maintain itself. If there are no winds to tear a storm apart, warm ocean waters often allow a tropical cyclone to strengthen, since it is the primary "fuel" for development.Maps of sea surface temperatures and anomalies are highly valuable to ocean and atmospheric scientists. They are one the primary tools climatologists use to monitor and forecast El Nino and La Nina events, and to forecast the frequency and intensity of hurricanes in all oceans.For NASA's New Sea Surface Temperature Page, please visit on the Web: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
October 11, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061010022518.htm | 'Trapped Wave' Caused Unexpected Dennis Surge, Scientists Say | When Hurricane Dennis passed North Florida on July 10, 2005, it caused a 10-foot storm surge in some areas along Apalachee Bay -- about 3 to 4 feet more than forecasted-- that couldn't be explained only by the local winds that conventionally drive storm surge. | Now, scientists at Florida State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have found that the surge in Apalachee Bay was amplified by a "trapped wave" that originated off the southwest Florida coast. The discovery of this previously undocumented storm surge phenomenon has changed how NOAA's National Hurricane Center prepares storm surge models for the Gulf of Mexico. New modeling procedures will help improve the accuracy of storm surge forecasts for the entire Gulf coast from Florida to Texas.Scientists Steven Morey, Mark Bourassa, Dmitry Dukhovskoy and James O'Brien of FSU's Center for Ocean Atmospheric Prediction Studies and Stephen Baig of NOAA's Tropical Prediction Center of the National Hurricane Center drew their conclusions after conducting numerical experiments with storm surge models. Their research was published in the Oct. 4 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.Hurricane Dennis formed from a tropical depression that originated near the southern Windward Islands on July 4, 2005. It strengthened as it traveled northwest through the Caribbean Sea until it made landfall in Cuba as a Category 4 hurricane. It then traveled west of the Florida Shelf, and the storm's maximum sustained winds weakened to 54 mph before it made landfall on the western Florida Panhandle. "Winds from Dennis forced water against the southwestern Florida coast creating a bulge of high sea level from Naples to around Tampa," Morey explained. "Oceanographers know that this 'bulge' will form a long wave that, in the Northern Hemisphere, will travel as a wave with the coast to the right. Because Dennis traveled nearly parallel to the Florida Peninsula coast at the same speed as the wave, winds from Dennis amplified the wave as it traveled to Apalachee Bay."The trapped wave then piled up on the shore along Apalachee Bay on top of the surge generated by the winds over the bay, according to O'Brien."To address these findings, we will use as necessary a larger geographical grid in our operational storm surge model in the Gulf of Mexico," said Baig, oceanographer and storm surge leader at NOAA's National Hurricane Center. "This will provide a more comprehensive view of a storm's potential impact in the Gulf by better accounting for the rare trapped wave effect."This type of remotely trapped wave could play a role in future storms that follow a path similar to Hurricane Dennis or travel westward south of the Louisiana coastline toward Texas, the scientists said.Funding from a NOAA Applied Research Center grant supported the research. Wind fields for the study were developed under funding by NASA and the National Science Foundation. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
October 11, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061010022224.htm | Dust May Dampen Hurricane Fury | After more than a dozen hurricanes battered the Atlantic Ocean last year, scientists are wondering what - if anything - might be causing stronger and more frequent storms. | Some have pointed to rising ocean temperatures, brought on by global warming. Others say the upswing is simply part of a natural cycle in which hurricanes get worse for a decade or two before dying down again. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have put forward an intriguing theory that introduces a whole new dimension to the debate. Writing today (Oct. 10, 2006) in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the scientists discuss a surprising link between hurricane frequency in the Atlantic and thick clouds of dust that periodically rise from the Sahara Desert and blow off Africa's western coast. Lead author Amato Evan, a researcher at UW-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS), pored over 25 years of satellite data - dating from 1981 to 2006 - and noticed the correlation. During periods of intense hurricane activity, he found, dust was relatively scarce in the atmosphere. In years when stronger dust storms rose up, on the other hand, fewer hurricanes swept through the Atlantic. "These findings are important because they show that long-term changes in hurricanes may be related to many different factors," says co-author Jonathan Foley, director of UW-Madison's Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment. "While a great deal of work has focused on the links between [hurricanes] and warming ocean temperatures, this research adds another piece to the puzzle." If scientists conclusively prove that dust storms help to squelch hurricanes, weather forecasters could one day begin to track atmospheric dust, factoring it into their predictions for the first time. Researchers have increasingly turned their attention to the environmental impact of dust, after it became clear that in some years, many million tons of sand rise up from the Sahara Desert and float right across the Atlantic Ocean, sometimes in as few as five days. "People didn't understand the potential impact of dust until satellites allowed us to see how incredibly expansive these dust storms can be," says Evan. "Sometimes during the summer, sunsets in Puerto Rico are beautiful because of all the dust in the sky. Well, that dust comes all the way from Africa." The Sahara sand rises when hot desert air collides with the cooler, dryer air of the Sahel region-just south of the Sahara-and forms wind. As particles swirl upwards, strong trade winds begin to blow them west into the northern Atlantic. Dust storms form primarily during summer and winter months, but in some years - for reasons that aren't understood - they barely form at all. Evan decided to explore the correlations between dust and hurricane activity after CIMSS research scientist Christopher Velden and others suggested that dust storms moving over the tropical North Atlantic might be able to suppress the development of hurricanes. The UW-Madison researchers say that makes sense because dry, dust-ridden layers of air probably helps to "dampen" brewing hurricanes, which need heat and moisture to fuel them. That effect, Velden adds, could also mean that dust storms have the potential to shift a hurricane's direction further to the west, which unfortunately means it would have a higher chance of hitting U.S. land. While the UW-Madison work doesn't confirm that dust storms directly influence hurricanes, it does provide compelling evidence that the two phenomena are linked in some way. "What we don't know is whether the dust affects the hurricanes directly, or whether both [dust and hurricanes] are responding to the same large scale atmospheric changes around the tropical Atlantic," says Foley. "That's what future research needs to find out." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 27, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060926104518.htm | NASA Technology Captures Massive Hurricane Waves | A hurricane's fury can be relentless, from frightening winds, to torrential rains and flooding. These storms also create enormous ocean waves that are hazardous to ships. And through storm surges of up to 30 feet the storms can demolish shoreline structures, erode beaches and wash out coastal roads. | As part of its activities to better understand Earth’s dynamic climate, NASA research is helping to increase knowledge about the behavior of hurricane waves. The NASA Scanning Radar Altimeter (SRA), designed to take measurements of the changing wave height and structure in and around hurricanes, flew through many storms on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) WP-3D aircraft from 1998-2005. It captured unprecedented details on wave behavior that are helping improve sea height forecasts. Strong storms like Hurricane Bonnie in August 1998 - the first to be monitored by SRA - were found to produce severe ocean waves and dramatic changes in wave height and complexity over small distances. The SRA measures waves by sweeping a radar beam across the ocean and measuring the distance to the sea at many points. Those distances are then subtracted from the aircraft altitude to produce a sea-surface elevation map that is displayed on a monitor in the aircraft.While the flight portion of the SRA hurricane research program concluded with the 2005 hurricane season, the data gathered continue to help researchers develop and improve ocean wave computer models that simulate hurricane-generated ocean wave height, dominant wavelength, and wave direction. These computer models allow wave behavior to be predicted at times and places where there are no observations. However, actual observations from SRA are essential because "they tell us how the wave field - the height, length and direction of waves in a given area – actually varies with a hurricane's wind speed, size, and forward motion so that we can improve the performance of the models that disaster managers and structural engineers rely on for guidance," said C. Wayne Wright, NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. Ongoing research efforts have shown that ocean wave height responds rapidly to changes in a storm's wind speed. But scientists believe the overall wave field is also driven by the size or radius of a storm's strongest winds, and its forward speed. In Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 the largest waves, up to 40 feet, were found near the strongest winds. In September 2004, scientists with the Naval Research Laboratory-Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Miss., measured a record-size ocean wave - a whopping 91 feet - when the eye wall of Hurricane Ivan passed over sensors in open water over the Gulf of Mexico."Ocean depth is another critical factor in wave height," said Edward Walsh, NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. "Our observations from Hurricane Bonnie indicated that as soon as the waves encountered the continental shelf - the underwater extension of the coastal plain - their length began to shorten and they became steeper. As the water became shallow, wave height plummeted." Similarly, with Hurricane Rita in September 2005, the wave height dropped dramatically and was only 9 feet when wave energy was lost due to the shoaling of water on the continental shelf - the process in which waves coming into shallow waters are slowed by friction and become closer together and steeper.Fortunately, a storm's most massive waves usually decrease in size when they interact with the ocean's continental shelf and other land forms, like "barrier islands" that form a thin protective wall between the open sea and the mainland. The islands absorb the strongest waves, sheltering the mainland during large storms. But with powerful storms like Katrina, the constant battering of waves can take a toll on the land, leaving the islands reduced or gone altogether. SRA's detailed and precise information, together with data to be gathered by a new operational SRA being built by NOAA to replace the NASA prototype, promises to provide additional insight into a hurricane's behavior. Such research is increasingly important as areas become more prone to higher storm surges as natural defenses like barrier islands and wetlands disappear. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 25, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060923104640.htm | Household Levels Of Mold Following Hurricane Katrina Surpass Some Agricultural Environments | In a study assessing flood clean-up procedures in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, a team of scientists led by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, report that household levels of mold and bacterial endotoxins in three single-family homes were so considerable that they equaled or surpassed those in waste- water treatment plants, cotton mills, and agricultural environments. The study is the first comprehensive report documenting levels of mold and bacteria in homes that received sustained flooding. | Following Hurricane Katrina, many New Orleans homes remained flooded for weeks, promoting heavy mold growth. These three New Orleans homes were selected for the study based on their levels of flood water, whether they previously were structurally sound, and if they were located in an area likely to be rebuilt. The study examined the extent to which homes that experienced significant and prolonged exposure to flood waters could be satisfactorily cleaned to enable reconstruction. Homes were inspected for roof leakage, standing water and the extent of mold throughout their interiors, as well as heating ventilation and air conditioning. "From our data, it is clear that levels of mold were so high that we strongly recommend that those entering, cleaning, and repairing flood-damaged homes wear respirators that are more protective than plain dust masks," said Ginger Chew, ScD, assistant professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. "While our assessments of the data are based on a small demonstration project, the results give a clear picture of what is acceptable in flood clean-up procedures." The project was sponsored by the NIEHS Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan and Enterprise Community Partners, and was carried out by the Mailman School of Public Health, the National Center for Healthy Housing (NCHH) and several other academic institutions including Tulane School of Public Health, the University of Cincinnati, Harvard School of Public Health, The University of Iowa, and Case Western Reserve University. "Our goal was to make recommendations for the safe removal of flood-damaged articles, safe re-entry into homes, and safe levels of worker protection," said Jonathan Wilson, deputy director of the National Center for Healthy Housing. According to researchers, these findings not only will inform those involved in current clean-up activities in New Orleans and other environments, but will benefit those responding to any future disasters that may occur.The findings will be published in the December issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 21, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060920112034.htm | Hurricane Fallout: Finding Out How Much Rain Really Falls During Storms | How can one know how much rain really falls over the path of a tropical storm or hurricane? This is a question that greatly interests meteorologists and hydrologists. On their behalf, and on behalf of the public which ultimately benefits from better observations of storms, NASA scientists are using satellite data from its rain gauge in space, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or “TRMM” to help provide these measurements. | TRMM, a joint mission between NASA and JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency, was launched in 1997 to study rainfall in the tropics. Since then, researchers and forecasters have found TRMM invaluable. TRMM has provided rainfall data in places that have no rain gauges, as well as lightning data and a never before seen 3-D look into storms. That 3-D capability has also led scientists to formulate a theory on "Hot Towers," or towering clouds that form in the eyewall of a hurricane. Currently, scientists are using TRMM data to provide a complete picture of precipitation around the entire world. Goddard scientists Bob Adler and George Huffman are compiling this information using TRMM, as well as data from NASA’s Aqua satellite, a few Department of Defense satellites, a few National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration polar-orbit satellites, and five international geostationary-orbit satellites. Polar orbiting satellites fly over the north and south poles. Geostationary satellites are those that orbit the Earth in a fixed position over the Equator. This combination of satellite data allows Adler and Huffman to compute how much rain has fallen over three hour periods for most of the world, not including the upper northern and lower southern hemispheres. Huffman said "Data from TRMM are key to getting the complete picture of rainfall around the world, because of the satellite's high quality sensors and special orbit." Adler and Huffman take advantage of these attributes to adjust each of the other satellite data sets to TRMM's rainfall data. NASA uses these TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis data to create maps of rainfall accumulation along the tracks of hurricanes. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 18, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060911120525.htm | How Hurricanes Are Born Off The African Coast | The NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (NAMMA) mission is a field research investigation where scientists are investigating how hurricanes are born off the African coast. It has been taking place in the Cape Verde Islands, 350 miles off the coast of Senegal in west Africa, in August and through mid-September, 2006. | Scientists are using airplanes, sensors, radar, computer modeling programs and NASA satellites to better understand hurricanes. Some of the NASA satellites include Aqua, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), and the recently-launched Cloudsat/CALIPSO satellite. Edward Zipser of the University of Utah, Salt City, is the chief mission scientist. Following is an on-location report from Dr. Zipser during the NAMMA Hurricane field mission.On August 23, 2006, scientists on the NAMMA mission took an eight hour flight into a tropical disturbance. Edward Zipser noted "surprisingly strong winds at 700 millibars (approximately 10,000 feet high), considering how the system seemed to be struggling to survive in the midst of the Sahara Air Layer."The Saharan Air Layer (SAL) is a mass of very dry, dusty air which forms over the Sahara Desert during the late spring, summer, and early fall and usually moves out over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The SAL usually extends between 5,000-20,000 feet in the atmosphere and is associated with large amounts of mineral dust, dry air and strong winds (~25-55 mph).Zipser said, "We saw evidence of dry air, typically from 750-550 millibars (10,000 to 19,000 feet), on almost all quadrants, but of course we won’t know right away how much of this air actually entered the inner core of the storm."During the previous two flights into the tropical system, the scientists used a communications system called "X-Chat" system. The main advantage was that mission scientist, Jeff Halverson, who was on the ground, watched movie loops of the tropical system and he was able to pass information to the DC-8 aircraft, while the flight scientist could rapidly relay information back.The scientists on the DC-8 aircraft noted that the storm structure they were flying over featured was not symmetrical (not identical on both sides of a central line) below about 6-7 kilometers (around 4 miles) altitude. They also noted that the system's strongest winds were on the east and north side.Another benefit to flying into a storm was that the scientists were able to better determine its exact location. The storm was found to be north of the forecast position. Zipser and his crew dropped about 24 dropsondes into the storm. A dropsonde is a sensor that measures temperature, pressure, moisture and winds throughout different locations of a storm.When the scientists flew into the tropical cyclone, they noticed that there were two different air circulations happening, like layers of a cake. In the top layer, higher than the surface, (above 500-400 millibars or 20,000 feet), the center of the cyclone seemed to be well southeast of the cyclone that was on lower level (at the surface).When the scientists flew over the “eye” or center of the tropical cyclone at a height of 35,000 feet, they we were continuously in thick cirrus clouds (wispy clouds made of ice crystals). Later, however, they were able to look at data from the PR-2 (an airborne radar) showing a sloping eyewall to 7 kilometers (4.3 miles).Convection (rising air that condenses higher in the atmosphere to form clouds and storms) decreased during the flight with little or no significant turbulence and no large areas of organized rainfall from stratiform clouds (layered clouds).The dropsondes were not spaced closely enough to give a proper description of the wind circulation close to the center of the storm, so the plane carrying Zipser and his crew descended to 10,000 feet (700 millibars) where they mapped the winds on the north and east sides of the storm. Winds were about 40 to 50 nautical miles per hour (45-55 mph), and there were some winds in excess of 60 knots (70 mph). There were no strong winds on the south side of the storm. The scientists estimated the winds on the surface around 40-45 knots (45-51 mph).Every flight into a storm gives scientists more information about how tropical cyclones work. The NAMMA mission ends in mid-September, 2006. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 17, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060915204558.htm | New Orleans 'Toxic Soup' A Less Serious Problem Than Initially Believed | Despite the tragic human and economic toll from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast in 2005, the much-discussed "toxic-soup" environmental pollution was nowhere close to being as bad as people thought. | That's the bottom-line message from dozens of scientific papers scheduled for presentation at a four-day symposium that opened here today at the American Chemical Society's national meeting, according to symposium organizer Ruth A. Hathaway. Entitled "Recovery From and Prevention of Natural Disasters," it is one of the key themes for the meeting, which runs through Sept. 14.James Lee Witt, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), will deliver the keynote address on September 14. Witt, now CEO of James Lee Witt Associates, LLC, headed FEMA during the Administration of President Bill Clinton."As I look at the presentations in this symposium, that's perhaps the most striking message," Hathaway said in an interview. "The dust has settled now and all the hoopla is over. We've actually had a chance to look at the real-world data from New Orleans. All indications at this point are that the hurricanes were not as devastating in stirring up chemicals as once feared."The data shows that there is no real need to ban fish consumption, for instance. Levels of some toxic metals are high in parts of New Orleans, but not generally higher than before Hurricane Katrina or in some other urban areas.Hathaway, of Hathaway Consulting in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is an organizer of the symposium, which includes 37 presentations on hurricanes, tornadoes and other disasters. Speakers range from chemists who analyzed levels of toxic metals in New Orleans to ecologists studying environmental consequences of Katrina's storm surge to academics reporting on damage and recovery of universities in the Gulf disaster zone.In one report, Michael T. Abel, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, describes finding potentially hazardous levels of lead and arsenic in New Orleans soil samples collected after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "It should be noted that similar values found in this sampling effort were present in studies conducted before the hurricanes," Abel wrote in a summary of his presentation.Jianmin Wang, Ph.D., and colleagues from the University of Missouri at Rolla, report that they collected 238 soil and sediment samples one month after Hurricane Katrina and analyzed them for pesticides and heavy metals. The pesticide levels were "generally not of great concern," they concluded.In another study, Gregory J. Smith, Ph.D., reported that Hurricane Katrina's storm surge (rise in water driven by wind) severely scoured marshlands and barrier islands east of New Orleans and the Mississippi River. About 118 square miles of land in southeastern Louisiana was initially transformed into water, added Smith, who directs the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette, La. Such changes reduce the ability of coastal wetlands to shield coastal communities from further hurricanes, he explained.Smith believes science has a role to play in restoring the coast. "In many ways science, engineering and technology have played a role in human development of the coast, and it is these same enterprises that offer the greatest opportunity for transforming our coasts from ones that are vulnerable, like those impacted in 2005, to ones that are resilient," he said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 13, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060825132313.htm | Weather Forecast Accuracy Gets Boost With New Computer Model | An advanced forecasting model that predicts several types of extreme weather with substantially improved accuracy has been adopted for day-to-day operational use by civilian and military weather forecasters. The new computer model was created through a partnership that includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and more than 150 other organizations and universities in the United States and abroad. | The high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) is the first model to serve as both the backbone of the nation's public weather forecasts and a tool for cutting-edge weather research. Because the model fulfills both functions, it is easier for research findings to be translated into improved operational models, leading to better forecasts.The model was adopted for use by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) as the primary model for its one-to-three-day U.S. forecasts and as a key part of the NWS's ensemble modeling system for short-range forecasts. The U.S. Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) also has used WRF for several areas of operations around the world."The Weather Research and Forecasting model development project is the first time researchers and operational scientists have come together to collaborate on a weather modeling project of this magnitude," says Louis Uccellini, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction.By late 2007, the new model will shape forecasts that serve more than a third of the world's population. It is being adopted by the national weather agencies of Taiwan, South Korea, China, and India."WRF is becoming the world's most popular model for weather prediction because it serves forecasters as well as researchers," says NCAR director Tim Killeen.Tests over the last year at NOAA and AFWA have shown that the new model offers multiple benefits over its predecessor models. For example: * Errors in nighttime temperature and humidity across the eastern United States are cut by more than 50%. * The model depicts flight-level winds in the subtropics that are stronger and more realistic, thus leading to improved turbulence guidance for aircraft. * The model outperformed its predecessor in more than 70% of the situations studied by AFWA. * WRF incorporates data from satellites, radars, and a wide range of other tools with greater ease than earlier models.NCAR has been experimenting with an advanced research version of WRF, with very fine resolution and innovative techniques, to demonstrate where potential may exist for improving the accuracy of hurricane track, intensity, and rainfall forecasts. A special hurricane-oriented version of WRF, the HWRF, is now being developed by scientists from NOAA, the Naval Research Laboratory, the University of Rhode Island, and Florida State University to support NOAA hurricane forecasting. The high-resolution HWRF will track waves and other features of the ocean and atmosphere, including the heat and moisture exchanged between them. Its depiction of hurricane cores and the ocean below them will be enhanced by data from satellites, aircraft, and other observing tools.WRF also is skilled at depicting intense squall lines, supercell thunderstorms, and other types of severe weather. Although no model can pinpoint hours ahead of time where a thunderstorm will form, WRF outpaces many models in its ability to predict what types of storms could form and how they might evolve.Approximately 4,000 people in 77 countries are registered users of WRF. Many of these users suggest improvements, which are tested for operational usefulness at a testbed facility based at NCAR and supported by NOAA."WRF will continue to improve because of all the research and development pouring into it from our nation's leading academic and scientific institutions," said AFWA commander Patrick Condray. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 12, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060912104432.htm | Human Activities Found To Affect Ocean Temperatures In Hurricane Formation Regions | New research shows that rising sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in hurricane “breeding grounds” of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are unlikely to be purely natural in origin. These findings complement earlier work that uncovered compelling scientific evidence of a link between warming SSTs and increases in hurricane intensity. | Previous studies to understand the causes of SST changes have focused on temperature changes averaged over very large ocean areas – such as the entire Atlantic or Pacific basins. The new research specifically targets SST changes in much smaller hurricane formation regions.Using 22 different computer models of the climate system, atmospheric scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and ten other research centers have shown that the warming of the tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans over the last century is directly linked to human activities.For the period 1906-2005, the researchers found an 84 percent chance that external forcing (such as human-caused increases in greenhouse gases, ozone and various aerosol particles) accounts for at least 67 percent of the observed rise in SSTs in the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane formation regions. In both regions, human-caused increases in greenhouse gases were found to be the main driver of the 20th century warming of SSTs.We’ve used virtually all the world’s climate models to study the causes of SST changes in hurricane formation regions,” said Benjamin Santer of Livermore’s Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison, lead author of a paper describing the research that appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Santer, in conjunction with Livermore colleagues Peter Gleckler, Krishna AchutaRao, Jim Boyle, Mike Fiorino, Steve Klein and Karl Taylor, collaborated with researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of California, Merced, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Hamburg in Germany, the Climatic Research Unit and Manchester University in the United Kingdom, the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.“In the real world, we’re performing an uncontrolled experiment by burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases,” Santer said. “We don’t have a convenient parallel Earth with no human influence on climate. This is why our study relied on computer models for estimates of how the climate of an ‘undisturbed Earth’ might have evolved. The bottom line is that natural processes alone simply cannot explain the observed SST increases in these hurricane breeding grounds. The best explanation for these changes has to include a large human influence.”Hurricanes are complex phenomena and are influenced by a variety of physical factors such as SST, wind shear, moisture availability and atmospheric stability. The increasing SSTs in the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane formation regions isn’t the sole cause of hurricane intensity, but is likely to be one of the most important influences on hurricane strength.“The models that we’ve used to understand the causes of SST increases in these hurricane formation regions predict that the oceans are going to get a lot warmer over the 21st century,” Santer said. “That causes some concern. In a post-Katrina world, we need to do the best job we possibly can to understand the complex influences on hurricane intensity, and how our actions are changing those influences.”The Livermore portion of the research is funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 2, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060901164053.htm | Forest Fires A Real Concern For Areas Hit Hard By Hurricanes | Scientists from the Pacific Northwest will help forest managers in the Southeast quickly measure fuel loads across extensive areas of hurricane-damaged forests, the first step in deciding where to remove downed trees in order to prevent devastating wildfires from inflicting even more damage to hurricane ravaged areas in the Southeast. | Hurricanes toppled millions of trees across the southeastern United States in 2004 and 2005. Roger Ottmar, a research forester with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station (PNW), will soon lead a team of fuels specialists in evaluating the amounts of dead trees and branches left on the forest floor.The team will measure logs, stumps, and other forest fuels across a broad spectrum of pine and hardwood forests, and use the data to develop a photographic guide that forest managers can use to rapidly assess fire hazards in their jurisdiction and develop plans for reducing fuel loads.“ The hurricane damage was devastating to both people and forests, and a big wildfire is the last thing they need at this point,” said Ottmar. “By recording the effects on damaged forests, we can assist the process of treating the most flammable fuels.”Forest Service scientists will complete their data collection in the spring of 2007, then translate the data into the guide. These types of guides are already helping federal officials in other regions of the United States, and unprecedented Katrina impacts prompted the recent call to develop a new guide focused on wind-damaged Southern forests.“ Hurricanes are a natural disturbance, and according to recent long-term weather forecasts, there will be even more of them in the near future,” said Ottmar. “Our work is targeted at the post-Katrina effort, but it will also provide the scientific data needed to manage the aftermath of the next big storm.”The federal interagency Joint Fire Science Program, based in Boise, Idaho, is funding the project. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 1, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060901163625.htm | Remembering Katrina: Studies Look At Multiple Facets Of The Hurricane's Devastation | In the year since Hurricane Katrina struck the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, scientists and engineers have examined the full breadth of the storm's aftermath--from levee failures and ecosystem damage to weather predictions and human responses in the midst of catastrophe. | According to a FEMA report, more than 1,300 people lost their lives in Louisiana and Mississippi alone; 450,000 were displaced. Total economic losses exceeded an estimated $125 billion, including homes, universities, bridges and other infrastructure--and some 350,000 vehicles and 2,400 ships.Some researchers arrived on the scene immediately to collect critical clues before they were lost to rescue and clean-up operations--and time. Other research took place in distant laboratories, where investigators plugged numbers into computer models or built search robots. The scientists and engineers all sought to understand exactly how the destruction happened, if and when it could happen again, and especially, how to prevent such carnage in the future.The National Science Foundation (NSF) supported many of the studies under its Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER) program. Although the program was created to support small-scale, exploratory, high-risk research of all kinds, it has proved to be especially well-suited for rapid-response situations because SGER requests can be processed and approved more quickly than other research proposals. Indeed, NSF has previously used the SGER program to field research teams in the aftermaths of both the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.Investigators supported under the SGER program often join other NSF-supported investigators who have been in the field for some time.Selected projects from the past year are highlighted below.NSF Announces "Rapid Response" Awards to Learn the Lessons of Katrina: The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the first of several dozen grants to send research teams into the Gulf Coast regions devastated by Hurricane Katrina. These "rapid-response" teams will seek to draw as many lessons as possible from the disaster before evidence is lost and memories can fade. NSF Announces New Awards to Study the Impact of Katrina on People and Social Systems: Whereas the initial wave of rapid-response teams tended to focus on engineering problems--the most notable being the failure of the New Orleans' levee system--the second group of teams focused on the human side of the story, including how people and organizations responded to the disaster and which factors are shaping the reconstruction. Researchers Release Draft Final Report on New Orleans Levees: Following an 8-month study of the New Orleans levee system and its performance during Hurricane Katrina, a 30-person team of researchers led by Raymond Seed and Robert Bea of the University of California, Berkeley, released a near-complete draft of their findings on May 22, 2006, in a "town hall" meeting in that Gulf Coast city. Hurricane Katrina: Scientists Fly Into Eye of the Storm: The Rainband and Intensity Change Experiment (RAINEX) project became the first hurricane research project to fly planes nearly simultaneously inside and outside a hurricane's principal rainband, gathering information that will help scientists to better understand changes in a hurricane's intensity. Number of Category 4 and 5 Hurricanes Has Doubled Over the Past 35 Years: The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, according to a study by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The change occurred as global sea-surface temperatures have increased over the same period. Seeing Into the Eye of Hurricane Rita: An advanced research weather model run by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., followed Hurricane Rita to give scientists a taste of how well forecast models of the future may predict hurricane track, intensity, and important rain and wind features. Gulf Warm-Water Eddies Intensify Hurricane Changes: Scientists monitoring ocean heat and circulation in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have a new understanding of how these tropical storms can gain intensity so quickly: The Gulf of Mexico's "Loop Current" is likely intensifying hurricanes that pass over eddies of warm water that spin off the main current. Small, Unmanned Aircraft Search for Survivors in Katrina Wreckage: Providing benefits of speed, portability and access, a pair of unmanned aerial vehicles surveyed storm-damaged communities in Mississippi as part of the search for trapped survivors of Hurricane Katrina. Robotics Researchers Return to Examine Katrina Devastation With Small Unmanned Helicopters: Building upon an earlier search mission using helicopter unmanned aerial vehicles, engineering researchers from the University of South Florida returned on Nov. 28, 2005, to the Mississippi Gulf Coast with their small, radio-controlled aircraft.Large Centrifuge Helps Researchers Mimic Effects of Katrina on Levees: Researchers studying the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the levees of New Orleans used a 150 g-ton centrifuge to model one of New Orleans' levee sections and the hurricane forces that led to the levee's failure. The goal of the test was to learn how layers of peat and clay beneath the levees might have contributed to the failure. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
September 1, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/09/060901143346.htm | High-flying Balloons Track Hurricane Formation, 'Seeding' Areas | The eastern tropical Atlantic Ocean is out of range for U.S. hurricane-hunter aircraft, and forecasters have little skill predicting which systems brewing there will develop into hurricanes, atmospheric scientists say. So, to find out how some of the most dangerous hurricanes form, U.S. and French researchers are launching large, specialized balloons carrying nearly 300 instruments over wide swaths of Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. | The first launch of a balloon with its instruments, called a driftsonde, took place at Zinder, Niger, on Aug. 28. Some seven more driftsondes will be released from Zinder through late September, coinciding with the peak period of hurricane formation over the tropical Atlantic."Data from the driftsondes should help characterize the conditions that either foster or suppress hurricane formation," said the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Cliff Jacobs, who oversees support for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.Scientists and engineers at NCAR and the French space agency, CNES, developed the driftsondes. The research was funded by NSF, NCAR's primary sponsor, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.Each balloon will drift from Africa toward the Caribbean at heights of around 65,000-70,000 feet, where light easterly winds prevail. Twice a day, each balloon will release an instrument known as a dropsonde that falls by parachute, sensing the weather conditions during its 20-minute descent and sending data back to the balloon and then to the researchers by satellite.Scientists will control the process from an operations center in Paris. If a weather system develops, they can signal the balloon to release additional dropsondes as often as once per hour.The Niger site was selected to study weak weather systems, called easterly waves, that serve as seedlings of hurricanes. Dozens of these waves move across Africa into the Atlantic between about 10 and 20 degrees North. A small number develop into tropical storms and hurricanes, some of which reach the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts."The driftsondes will provide unique data on the conditions that lead to Atlantic hurricanes," said NCAR scientist David Parsons, U.S. coordinator for the project. "They float at a speed close to the movement of the easterly waves, so we can stay above those waves and monitor them from their earliest stages."To build the driftsonde system, scientists, engineers, and machinists had to overcome many hurdles. Each driftsonde had to be robust enough to endure days of extreme stratospheric cold (averaging minus-80 degrees Fahrenheit) as well as the intense sunlight of the high, thin atmosphere.For the balloon deployment to be affordable and practical, the system also required low-cost, lightweight, off-the-shelf instruments capable of operating reliably in low pressure and in temperature extremes with very low power.Because of their flexible and relatively inexpensive nature, scientists believe, driftsondes may soon become a popular way to monitor and study many types of weather across the world's oceans and other remote regions. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
August 29, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060828211642.htm | Levels of Serious Mental Illness in Katrina Survivors Doubled | According to the most comprehensive survey yet completed of mental health among Hurricane Katrina survivors from Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, the proportion of people with a serious mental illness doubled in the months after the hurricane compared to a survey carried out several years before the hurricane. The study also found that thoughts of suicide did not increase despite the dramatic increase in mental illness. | The authors suggest that this low rate of suicide thoughts is due to optimistic beliefs about the success of future recovery efforts. The research, led by investigators from Harvard Medical School (HMS), was published in a special online edition of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization: "The increase in mental illness among Katrina survivors is not surprising, but the low suicidality is a surprise," says Ronald Kessler, PhD, professor of health care policy at HMS and lead author of the study. "Our concern, though, is that this lowering of suicidal tendencies appears to be strongly associated with expectations for recovery efforts that might not be realistic."This report is the first in a planned series based on the Hurricane Katrina Community Advisory Group, a statistically representative sample of hurricane survivors participating in ongoing tracking surveys to monitor the pace and mental health effects of hurricane recovery efforts. The National Institute of Mental Health and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Planning and Evaluation fund the project.To estimate the influence of Hurricane Katrina on the mental health of survivors, the researchers compared results of the post-Katrina survey with a survey carried out several years earlier that used the same assessment of mental illness. The earlier survey was the 2001-03 National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R), taken every 10 years to assess the mental health of the country. The NCS-R, although carried out throughout the entire country, included 826 respondents in the area subsequently affected by hurricane Katrina. The NCS-R, which is managed by the same HMS research team overseeing the Katrina project, was administered face-to-face, and had a 70 percent response, or cooperation, rate.The post-Katrina survey included a completely separate sample of 1,043 individuals who agreed to participate in the ongoing project. Interviewers reached participants by random-digit dialing of phones working in the eligible counties and parishes prior to the hurricane (if survivors relocated, calls were forwarded to their new locations), and from telephone numbers provided by the American Red Cross from individuals requesting assistance.The post-Katrina survey was carried out between January 19 and March 31, 2006 and had a response rate of 41.9 percent. Although this is a relatively low response rate in comparison to typical one-shot surveys, it is considerably higher than the response rates obtained in more conventional consumer panel surveys. A weight was applied to the survey to adjust for observed differences between respondents and non-respondents, as non-respondents tended to have somewhat higher levels of trauma exposure and hurricane-related psychological distress. Other weights were added to account for the household participant selection and any discrepancies between the sample and the population based on data obtained from the US Bureau of the Census.In addition to identically worded questions asked of the pre- and post-Katrina respondents, the post-Katrina survey also assessed "cognitions" found in previous research to predict adjustment to disasters. Mental illness was assessed with a widely accepted screening scale that can distinguish between serious and less serious cases. To validate the estimates of mental illness, trained clinical interviewers carried out follow-up assessments of depression, post-traumatic stress, panic, anxiety and other mental disorders in a random sub-sample of survey respondents. Suicide thoughts, plans, and attempts were assessed with a standard battery of questions about these outcomes.Kessler and his team found that post-Katrina survey respondents were significantly more likely than respondents in the earlier survey to have either serious mental illness (11.3 percent versus 6.1 percent) or mild to moderate mental illness (19.9 percent versus 9.7 percent). They also found that the prevalence of suicidal thoughts given mental illness was significantly lower in the post-Katrina survey than the NCS-R.The team discovered a strong relationship between the comparatively low rate of suicide thoughts and the existence of positive cognitions among Katrina survivors, especially with cognitions regarding increased sense of meaning and purpose in life and increased realization of inner strengths. For mentally ill post-Katrina survey respondents who did not endorse these cognitions, the prevalence of suicide thoughts was comparable to the prevalence in the NCS-R.The researchers concluded that despite the doubling of mental illness after Hurricane Katrina, these positive cognitions appear to have prevented increased suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. However, they also concluded that because the positive cognitions were tied to expectations about a better future, the results might only be a temporary reprieve.Kessler notes that although previous studies have suggested a connection between positive cognitions and lowered suicidality, this is the first study that offers quantitative evidence of these psychological processes in a sample of disaster victims.Kessler and his team believe that their findings suggest a systematic investigation of positive cognitions might be useful in guiding public health mass media efforts in the aftermath of future disasters, given that previous research has shown that public health messages play an important role in psychological reactions to disasters."The immediate take-home message for disaster recovery and policy makers is that communications with survivors can sometimes build on the temporary reprieve from suicidal tendencies afforded by these protective cognitions. Efforts on the part of public officials to control expectations as practical recovery moves forward without destroying the positive cognitions related to these expectations could prove crucial in the process of continued psychological recovery," says Kessler. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
August 28, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060828074620.htm | Nasa looks back at Hurricane Katrina one year later | The 2005 hurricane season will long be remembered both for the record-breaking number of storms and a devastating hurricane named Katrina. | Several NASA satellites gave important details about Katrina's storm structure and strength throughout her life cycle, aiding forecasters and emergency managers. In the aftermath, data from satellites and instruments on NASA planes became useful in recovery efforts, damage assessments, and analysis of the storm's environmental impacts. Katrina left as many as 1,833 dead according to the National Hurricane Center, and over $80 billion in damage.Katrina began as only a feeble storm being tracked by satellites and forecasters. On Aug. 23, Katrina was nothing but a mass of organized clouds over the Bahamas. But later that day, she quickly intensified and headed toward the U.S. coastline. Late on Aug. 25, she made her first landfall just south of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as a Category 1 hurricane.As Katrina moved into the Gulf of Mexico, atmospheric conditions were favorable for rapid development. Data from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR-E) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite showed unusually warm ocean temperatures in her path -- prime fuel for a hurricane.By early in the morning of Aug. 28, Katrina's winds reached a remarkable 175 mph -- a category 5 storm -- with a central pressure of 902 millibars, the fourth lowest pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic. During this phase of rapid development, forecasters were aided by data from NASA's Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) instrument on the Terra satellite that supplied information on Katrina's cloud motion and height, improving the accuracy of forecasts and warnings.The loss of life and property damage was worsened by breaks in the levees that separate New Orleans, La., from surrounding Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas. At least 80 percent of New Orleans was under flood water on Aug. 31, largely as a result of levee failures from Lake Pontchartrain, leaving some parts of the city under 20 feet of water. Storm surge from Mobile Bay led to inundation of Mobile, Ala.; and large portions of Biloxi and Gulfport, Miss., were underwater and essentially swept away by a 25-30 foot storm surge. Within two city blocks of Biloxi, two floating casinos disappeared.The flooding in New Orleans persisted for weeks and was captured by several NASA satellite instruments, including the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite.In wake of the storm, changes to the coastline were observed by NASA’s Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar (EAARL) mapping system that was flown on research aircraft. This mapping system is able to "see" through vegetation, like trees and shrubs, and view the land underneath to help determine hazard areas and environmental loss. The EAARL data proved helpful to emergency managers in rebuilding efforts.In Louisiana, scientists estimate that 25 percent of the coastal wetlands, which help lessen storm surges and weaken powerful winds, have disappeared in the 20th century, making inland areas more vulnerable to storms.Although 2005 was an unusually active year, meteorologists predict hurricane seasons with above-average activity for at least the next decade. In the future, NASA satellites and instruments will continue to monitor hurricane breeding grounds and provide unprecedented detail on their size and strength so forecasters can be alerted and issue more accurate forecasts and warnings. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
August 15, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060815160934.htm | Establishing A Connection Between Global Warming And Hurricane Intensity | Climate change is affecting the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, and hurricane damage will likely continue to increase because of greenhouse warming, according to a new study. It provides for the first time a direct relationship between climate change and hurricane intensity, unlike other studies that have linked warmer oceans to a likely increase in the number of hurricanes. | James Elsner of Florida State University in Tallahassee examined the statistical connection between the average global near-surface air temperature and Atlantic sea surface temperature, comparing the two factors with hurricane intensities over the past 50 years. He found that average air temperatures during hurricane season between June and November are useful in predicting sea surface temperatures--a vital component in nourishing hurricane winds as they strengthen in warm waters--but not vice-versa. Elsner's paper is scheduled to be published 23 August in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union. Several recent studies have warned that human-induced climate warming has the potential to increase the number of tropical cyclones (hurricanes), and previous research and computer models suggest that hurricane intensity would increase with increasing global mean temperatures. Others, however, hypothesize that the relationship between sea surface temperatures and hurricanes can be attributed to natural causes, such as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, an ongoing series of long-term changes in the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean."The large increases in powerful hurricanes over the past several decades, together with the results presented here, certainly suggest cause for concern," Elsner said. "These results have serious implications for life and property throughout the Caribbean, Mexico, and portions of the United States."Using highly detailed data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to monitor sea temperature anomalies over the past half-century, Elsner used a causality test to establish evidence in support of the climate change/hurricane intensity hypothesis. His analysis helps provide verification of a linkage between atmospheric warming caused largely by greenhouse gases and the recent upswing in frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, including Katrina and Rita, which devastated parts of Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas in 2005."I infer that future hurricane hazard mitigation efforts should reflect that hurricane damage will continue to increase, in part, due to greenhouse warming," Elsner said. "This research is important to the field of hurricane science by moving the debate away from trend analyses of hurricane counts and toward a physical mechanism that can account for the various observations."The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Risk Prediction Initiative of the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
August 14, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060814122318.htm | Elders Suffer Disproportionately During Heat Waves, Other Disasters | Recent natural disasters have negatively affected older people significantly more than other demographic groups, yet few steps have been taken to improve ensuing relief efforts, according to the latest issue of the Public Policy & Aging Report (PP&AR), a quarterly publication of the National Academy on an Aging Society. | Under the subject of "Disasters and Aging," this installment of the PP&AR also features articles discussing the impact of national crises and the lessons policymakers can learn from them.Two major weather events in the past several years have wreaked special havoc on older adults - the Chicago heat wave of 1995 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. People of advanced age were disproportionately overlooked, abandoned, or forgotten. Nearly 75 percent of the victims in Chicago and New Orleans were over the ages of 60 or 65, respectively.The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently reported that there is a 90 to 99 percent probability that there will be higher maximum temperatures and more heat waves over nearly all land areas in the twenty-first century. The group also stated that the likely consequences of these events would be an increased incidence of death and serious illness in older age groups and the urban poor.Just as normal emergency response systems become overloaded in times of disaster, functional seniors are among the first groups to become challenged beyond their reserves. Author Thomas Glass of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health therefore outlines several policy recommendations to combat this problem. His research offers such suggestions as using census data to identify locations of vulnerable people and utilizing social support networks to assist in evacuations. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
August 7, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060807155009.htm | Katrina and Rita One Year Later: Ecological Effects Of Gulf Coast Hurricanes | Hurricane Katrina made landfall August 29, 2005 becoming the costliest ($75 billion) and one of the deadliest (nearly 2,000 human lives lost) hurricanes in U.S. history. With the nation still reeling from Katrina, Hurricane Rita hit on September 24, 2005, causing $10 billion in damage but taking a far less direct toll on human lives. The duo's ecological consequences were also considerable: storm surges flooded coastal areas. Powerful winds felled forests in south Louisiana and Mississippi, havens for wildlife and migratory birds. Saltwater and polluted floodwaters from New Orleans surged into Lake Pontchartrain. Taking stock nearly a year later, experts from the Gulf Coast region will address the storms' ecological consequences and will offer insights on how ecological knowledge can help mitigate damage from future hurricanes. | "Not only is the City of New Orleans built on reclaimed wetlands that have subsided by up to 5 meters, over 25 percent of coastal wetlands disappeared in the 20th century," says John Day (Louisiana State University). Day, one of the symposia's presenters, argues that serious wetland restoration plans must close or restrict the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a canal that contributed to the flooding of New Orleans and that disconnects the river from its delta plain. Wetlands help stem storm surges and diffuse powerful winds.Complementing Day's argument, Paul Keddy (Southeastern Louisiana University) believes residents in the Gulf Coast states will have to decide if they want "business as usual" or a dramatic change in the way people accept the limitations and realities of dynamic coastal areas. During his presentation, Keddy will lay out what he sees as the connections between hurricanes, human irrationality, and Gulf Coast ecosystems. "From the American dust bowl to the collapse of the Canadian cod fishery, people have chosen development trajectories that are catastrophic in the longer term," he says. Gary Shaffer (Southeastern Louisiana University) will suggest some concrete wetlands restoration steps that he believes will need to go hand-in-hand with human-made flood control barriers. "Bald cypress - water tupelo swamps are particularly effective at dampening forward progress of both floodwaters and winds," he notes. Shaffer believes that cypress and tupelo seedlings could achieve 10 meter heights within a single decade and serve as major storm damage reduction agents.Looking specifically at Louisiana's Lake Pontchartrain, Carlton Dufrechou's (Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to restoring and preserving the Lake Pontchartrain Basin) presentation will include post-storm satellite imagery that suggests that Hurricane Katrina may have destroyed over 60 square miles of the lake's wetlands in a mere 24 hour period. "As more coastal areas disappear, residents in the region become more vulnerable to the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes," says Dufrechou. On a brighter note, however, the lake's water quality appears to have recovered to pre-Katrina conditions, in spite of being the recipient of nearly nine billion gallons of highly contaminated water pumped out of New Orleans and into the lake.Other speakers of the session will include Stephen Faulkner (U.S. Geological Survey) who will focus on the hurricanes' impacts on coastal forests, Robb Diehl and Frank Moore (University of Southern Mississippi) addressing the impact of hurricanes on migratory birds, Heather Passmore (Louisiana State University) exploring the interaction of hurricanes and fires, and William Platt (Louisiana State University) who will speak about sea level rise and hurricanes. The session is being organized by Colin Jackson (University of Mississippi) along with Gary Shaffer and Paul Keddy (Southeastern Louisiana University).For more information about this session and other ESA Meeting activities, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
July 27, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060726180444.htm | NASA Africa Mission Investigates Origin, Development Of Hurricanes | Scientists from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, universities and international agencies will study how winds and dust conditions from Africa influence the birth of hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. | The field campaign, called NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses 2006, runs from Aug. 15 to mid-September in the Cape Verde Islands, 350 miles off the coast of Senegal in West Africa. This campaign is a component of a much broader international project, called the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses, aimed at improving the knowledge and understanding of the West African Monsoon.Researchers will use satellite data, weather station information, computer models and aircraft to provide scientists with better insight into all the conditions that enhance the development of tropical cyclones, the general name given to tropical depressions, storms and hurricanes. This research will help hurricane forecasters better understand the behavior of these deadly storms."Scientists recognize the hurricane development process when they see it, but our skill in forecasting which weak system will intensify into a major cyclone is not great," said Edward Zipser, mission chief scientist, of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. "That is why NASA and its partners place a high priority on obtaining high-quality data for weak disturbances, as well as those already showing signs of intensification."For hurricanes to develop, specific environmental conditions must be present: warm ocean waters, high humidity and favorable atmospheric and upward spiraling wind patterns off the ocean surface. Atlantic hurricanes usually start as weak tropical disturbances off the coast of West Africa and intensify into rotating storms with weak winds, called tropical depressions. If the depression continues to intensify and reaches wind speeds of at least 39 mph, they are classified as tropical storms. Hurricanes have winds greater than 73 mph.To study these environmental conditions, researchers will use NASA's DC-8 research aircraft as a platform for advanced atmospheric research instruments. Remote and on-site sensing devices will allow scientists to target specific areas in developing storms. Sensors on-board the aircraft will measure cloud and particle sizes and shapes, wind speed and direction, rainfall rates, atmospheric temperature, pressure and relative humidity.The campaign will use extensive data from NASA's fleet of earth observing satellites, including the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission, QuikSCAT, Aqua, and the recently-launched Cloudsat and CALIPSO. These advanced satellites will provide unprecedented views into the vertical structure of the tropical systems, while the field observations will help validate data from the new satellites.To better understand the physics of hurricanes, researchers are seeking answers to questions about hurricane development, air currents and the effects of dust on clouds.During the field campaign, scientists hope to get a better understanding of the role of the Saharan Air Layer and how its dry air, strong embedded winds and dust influences cyclone development. The layer is a mass of very dry, often dusty air that forms over the Sahara Desert during the late spring, summer, and early fall and usually moves out over the tropical Atlantic Ocean.As part of looking at the Saharan Air Layer, scientists want to better understand dust's effect on clouds. Some evidence indicates that dust makes it more difficult for rain to form. Cloud models need to account for any such effect, so measurements of cloud droplet concentrations and size in clean ocean air and dusty air from the Sahara need to be made.Researchers also will look at what happens to air currents as they move from land to ocean waters. Information on clouds and moisture, heat, air movement, and precipitation in an unstable atmosphere will be collected, analyzed and then simulated in computer models. Understanding hurricane formation requires measurements from very small to very large scales, from microscopic dust and raindrops to cloud formations and air currents spanning hundreds of miles. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 27, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060627094017.htm | Armed With Cannons, Cranes And Wind Machines, Engineers Test Houses | The wind roared against the house. Shingles and tar paper flew off the roof, exposing bare plywood. The front window buckled, then shattered, shooting glass shards into the living room. | The 1970s-style vacant ranch house was taking a beating, but not from a hurricane. Instead, engineers were simulating the effects of hurricane-force winds and wind-driven rain with a custom-built wind machine called the “Wall of Wind.” Two caged airboat propellers, each driven by earsplitting Chevrolet V8 502 motors, blasted the house with 120-mph gusts and sheets of water.It was just one of several experiments earlier this month on 10 vacant homes in rural Polk County. The goal: To learn more about why most of Florida’s homes — those built before the state’s hurricane building code went into effect — buckle under hurricane-force winds. And to test the various methods for fortifying weak points, from reinforcing garage doors to protecting windows with plywood or other coverings.“What we’re trying to do is evaluate how much we can reduce an older home’s vulnerability by applying post-construction retrofits,” said Kurt Gurley, lead researcher on the state-funded project and an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Florida.Although some counties have had their own building codes for decades, Florida adopted its first statewide building code in 1994, two years after Hurricane Andrew devastated South Florida. The state significantly upgraded that code in 2001, strengthening provisions aimed at preventing hurricane wind damage.Previous research by Gurley and his colleagues has shown that homes built under the most recent code stood up to the four 2004 hurricanes better than those built under the first code. The problem, Gurley said, is that the majority of existing homes were built before 1992. In regions developed early, such as Tampa and St. Petersburg, nearly all the homes in many neighborhoods precede the statewide code. Gurley said that raises two questions: How well do these homes resist hurricane winds, and which of many possible retrofits make the most sense for homeowners seeking to fortify them?“We want to quantify how much you reduce your vulnerability to wind with the various retrofits so that people can weigh the options,” Gurley said. “Some homeowners will have limited budgets, so we hopefully we’ll come up with a way for them to prioritize.”Engineers have extensively tested building components and retrofits, but the work is usually done in labs, Gurley said. That means that while the results may have merit, they don’t necessarily match field conditions, where rusted nails, rotted wood and other conditions frequently complicate matters.“That’s about the most important thing: We’re working in real conditions, capturing data from real houses,” said Forrest Masters, an assistant professor of civil engineering and director of the Laboratory for Wind Engineering Research at the International Hurricane Research Center at Florida International University.The 10 Polk County homes, built in the 1970s and 1980s, are typical for modest homes of their era. Their walls are concrete block, with aluminum frame windows and wood truss frame roofs. The engineers had access to the homes because they had flooded extensively and were bought through a state-federal buyout program for vulnerable properties.Besides the wind tests, the researchers used a trailer-mounted air cannon to fire two-by-four boards at one home’s windows covered with Lexan, a Plexiglas-like material that can be used for shutters. The test was meant to stimulate flying debris in storms, a common source of damage in heavily populated areas that occurs as homes come apart in storms.A radar gun clocked the two-by-four at 40 mph as it slammed into the Lexan. The Lexan withstood the blow, but it flexed inward several inches, causing the glass window it was protecting to shatter. More important than the loss of a window, the protective cover stayed in place, preventing wind and rain from entering the house, researchers said.To test the strength of roof-to-wall connections against major uplift wind forces on the roof, the engineers used a crane to yank up on the edge of one roof. Rather than snap at the metal connection between the rafters and concrete block, the force cracked off the concrete beam at the wall. In newer homes, that beam is connected to the wall with steel rods, but homeowners of older homes can anchor the beam with a metal strap, researchers said.UF, FIU, Florida A&M University, the University of Western Ontario and the nonprofit Tampa-based Institute of Business and Home Safety are collaborating on the project, funded with a $190,000 grant from the Florida Department of Community Affairs. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 26, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060626231813.htm | New Era In Space Weather Prediction: Scientists Accurately Simulate Appearance Of Sun's Corona During Eclipse | The most true-to-life computer simulation ever made of our sun's multimillion-degree outer atmosphere, the corona, successfully predicted its actual appearance during the March 29, 2006, solar eclipse, scientists have announced. | The research, funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF), marks the beginning of a new era in space weather prediction. The results are presented today at the American Astronomical Society (AAS)'s Solar Physics Division meeting in Durham, N.H."This confirms that computer models can describe the physics of the solar corona," said Zoran Mikic of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), San Diego, Calif.The turbulent corona is threaded with magnetic fields generated beneath the visible solar surface. The evolution of these magnetic fields causes violent eruptions and solar storms originating in the corona.Like a rubber band that's been twisted too tightly, solar magnetic fields suddenly snap to a new shape while blasting billions of tons of plasma into space, at millions of miles per hour, in what scientists call a coronal mass ejection (CME). Or the magnetic field explodes as a solar flare with the force of up to a billion 1-megaton nuclear bombs.When directed at Earth, solar flares and CMEs can disrupt satellites, communications and power systems."Finding out that a hurricane is bearing down on you isn't much good if the warning only gives you an hour to prepare," said Paul Bellaire, program director in NSF's Division of Atmospheric Sciences, which funded the research. "That's the situation we're in now with space weather. Being able to determine the structure of the solar wind at its source -- the sun -- will give us the lead time we need to make space weather predictions truly useful."By accurately simulating the behavior of the corona, scientists hope to predict when it will produce flares and CMEs, the same way the National Weather Service uses computer simulations of Earth's atmosphere to predict when it will produce thunderstorms or hurricanes.The computer model was based on spacecraft observations of magnetic activity on the sun's surface, which affects and shapes the corona above it. The SAIC team released simulated "photographs" of the March 29 eclipse 13 days and again 5 days before the eclipse.During a total solar eclipse, the moon blocks direct light coming from the sun, so the much fainter corona is visible, resembling a white, lacy veil surrounding the black disk of the moon. That is the only time the corona is visible from Earth without special instruments.Because the corona is always changing, each eclipse looks different. The simulated photographs closely resembled actual photos of the eclipse, "providing reassurance that the model may be able to predict space weather events," said Mikic.Previous simulations were based on simplified models, so the calculations could be completed in a reasonable time by computers available then. The new simulation is the first to base its calculations on the physics of how energy is transferred in the corona.Even with today's powerful computers, the calculations required four days to complete on about 700 computer processors.The scientific team includes Mikic, Jon Linker, Pete Riley, Roberto Lionello, and Viacheslav Titov, all of SAIC. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 26, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060626231500.htm | Underwater Microscope Finds Biological Treasures In The Subtropical Ocean | Scientists towing an underwater digital microscope across the Atlantic have found possible missing links to the global nitrogen cycle, which in turn is linked to ocean productivity. | In a recent report in the journal Science, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) found abundant colonies of Trichodesmium. The multi-celled, filamentous organism is thought to play a significant role in the input of nitrogen to the upper layers of the tropical and subtropical ocean, nearly half of the Earth’s surface.Lead author Cabell Davis, a senior scientist in the WHOI Biology Department, and co-author Dennis McGillicuddy, an associate scientist in the WHOI Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department, suggest that nitrogen fixation rates for Trichodesmium may be 2.7 to 5 times higher than previously estimated from traditional sampling.Trichodesmium is one of many tiny photosynthetic organisms that use the sun’s energy, carbon dioxide and other nutrients to make organic material that constitutes the basis of the marine food web. Production of biomass in surface waters is typically limited by nitrogen, but Trichodesmium is able to escape that constraint by virtue of its ability to utilize nitrogen gas, which is plentiful in the atmosphere and upper ocean.Trichodesmium abundance has been difficult to measure using traditional net sampling because the colonies are easily damaged or destroyed during collection. Sampling with bottles has provided estimates of abundance of the organism, but it is a snapshot view.The Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) is a noninvasive instrument, consisting of a digital video-microscope on a towed vehicle that samples at 30 frames per second and automatically sorts the Trichodesmium images from other organisms.“If traditional sampling has underestimated colonies in other regions of the world, our estimates of global Trichodesmium abundance will increase dramatically,” Davis said. “That increase could potentially account for a significant portion of the global nitrogen cycle, thus changing our perception of the importance of this organism to the productivity of the world ocean.”Davis and McGillicuddy towed the VPR across the North Atlantic between the Azores and the Slope Water south of Woods Hole in 2003, skirting category 3 hurricane Fabian. The vehicle was towed at six meters per second, about 12 nautical miles an hour, surveying continually and automatically between the surface and about 130 meters (400 feet) deep like a yo-yo. Nearly 7,000 vertical profiles were taken during the 5,517 kilometer (about 3,443 miles) transit across the North Atlantic.While the colonies of Trichodesmium are fragile and thought to be destroyed when mixed by strong winds, the team found no evidence that hurricane Fabian, with winds up to 200 kilometers an hour (about 125 miles per hour), had caused them any damage. The team sampled the upper layers of the ocean across the wake of the storm.The researchers also found a strong correlation between temperature, salinity and abundance of Trichodesmium colonies in the various eddies and the Gulf Stream the VPR crossed during its survey.Two forms of Trichodesmium, called puffs and tufts because of their shapes, were found in higher concentrations in warm salty water. Higher concentrations of the organism were also found in warm anticyclonic eddies than in cold cyclonic ones, but the reasons are unclear.Davis and McGillicuddy are doing similar survey aboard WHOI’s research vessel Knorr, which just passed through the Panama Canal. The researchers will deploy the VPR and survey across the Caribbean Sea, a region known to have very high concentrations of Trichodesmium. The ship will arrive back at Woods Hole on June 29.Davis says the new Caribbean VPR survey will provide much needed information about Trichodesmium population estimates in its tropical home, information that has been difficult to obtain due to the patchy nature of the species in ocean waters.The project was supported by the Richard B. Sellars Endowed Research Fund, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowed Fund for Innovative Research, the WHOI Ocean Life Institute, the National Science Foundation and NASA. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 23, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060623174027.htm | NASA Finds Intense Lightning Activity Around A Hurricane's Eye | When you think of lightning, you think of a thunderstorm. Many people also assume that hurricanes have a lot of lightning because they are made up of hundreds of thunderstorms. | However, according to Dr. Richard Blakeslee of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Ala., "Generally there's not a lot of lightning in the hurricane eye-wall region. So when people detect a lot of lightning in a hurricane, they perk up -- they say, okay, something's happening."In 2005, scientists did perk up, because a very strong Hurricane Emily had some of the most lightning activity ever seen in a hurricane. Scientists are now trying to determine if the frequency of lightning is connected to the hurricane's strength.In July of that year, NASA lightning researchers joined hurricane specialists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and 10 universities for a month-long Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) field experiment in Costa Rica. The purpose of the mission was to determine what weather, climate and other factors that helped create tropical storms and hurricanes. They also wanted to learn about what makes these storms strengthen. All of these organizations study lightning in hurricanes to get a better understanding of the strengthening or weakening (intensification) of the storms.Hurricane Emily was one of three named storms (the others were Hurricane Dennis and Tropical Storm Gert) observed during the TCSP field experiment. Scientists flew NASA's ER-2 high-altitude weather plane above Emily, where they recorded some of the most powerful lightning activity ever seen in a hurricane’s eye-wall. Emily was one of the largest, most violent hurricanes ever to be documented by the ER-2 plane.During the flights, scientists detected both cloud-to-ground lightning strokes and cloud-to-cloud lightning in the thunderstorms surrounding Emily's eye. They also found that the "electric fields," or areas of the atmosphere that contained electricity above Hurricane Emily, were some the strongest ever recorded. "We observed steady fields in excess of 8 kilovolts (8,000 volts) per meter (3.2 feet)," says Blakeslee. "That is huge—and comparable to the strongest fields we would expect to find over a large land-based thunderstorm."The field experiment concluded before the birth of hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. However, scientists also observed significant lightning in the eye walls of hurricanes Katrina and Rita through long range ground-based lightning detection networks. That similarity has generated more interest in trying to understand the connection between lightning activity and hurricane development, intensification and behavior.Researchers at the National Space Science and Technology Center, a facility jointly managed and operated by NASA MSFC and Alabama research universities, are working with the NOAA to better understand the connection between lightning and hurricane intensity.The month of June is typically known among meteorologists for promoting lightning safety awareness, because June is the first month of summer and brings thunderstorms. For more information about lightning safety, please visit on the Web: For more information about NSSTC Lightning Studies, visit on the Web, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 22, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060622173129.htm | Global Warming Surpassed Natural Cycles In Fueling 2005 Hurricane Season, NCAR Scientists Conclude | Global warming accounted for around half of the extra hurricane-fueling warmth in the waters of the tropical North Atlantic in 2005, while natural cycles were only a minor factor, according to a new analysis by Kevin Trenberth and Dennis Shea of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The study will appear in the June 27 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, published by the American Geophysical Union. | "The global warming influence provides a new background level that increases the risk of future enhancements in hurricane activity," Trenberth says. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, NCAR's primary sponsor.The study contradicts recent claims that natural cycles are responsible for the upturn in Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995. It also adds support to the premise that hurricane seasons will become more active as global temperatures rise. Last year produced a record 28 tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic. Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all reached Category 5 strength.Trenberth and Shea's research focuses on an increase in ocean temperatures. During much of last year's hurricane season, sea-surface temperatures across the tropical Atlantic between 10 and 20 degrees north, which is where many Atlantic hurricanes originate, were a record 1.7 degrees F above the 1901-1970 average. While researchers agree that the warming waters fueled hurricane intensity, they have been uncertain whether Atlantic waters have heated up because of a natural, decades-long cycle, or because of global warming.By analyzing worldwide data on sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) since the early 20th century, Trenberth and Shea were able to calculate the causes of the increased temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic. Their calculations show that global warming explained about 0.8 degrees F of this rise. Aftereffects from the 2004-05 El Nino accounted for about 0.4 degrees F. The Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO), a 60-to-80-year natural cycle in SSTs, explained less than 0.2 degrees F of the rise, according to Trenberth. The remainder is due to year-to-year variability in temperatures.Previous studies have attributed the warming and cooling patterns of North Atlantic ocean temperatures in the 20th century—and associated hurricane activity—to the AMO. But Trenberth, suspecting that global warming was also playing a role, looked beyond the Atlantic to temperature patterns throughout Earth's tropical and midlatitude waters. He subtracted the global trend from the irregular Atlantic temperatures—in effect, separating global warming from the Atlantic natural cycle. The results show that the AMO is actually much weaker now than it was in the 1950s, when Atlantic hurricanes were also quite active. However, the AMO did contribute to the lull in hurricane activity from about 1970 to 1990 in the Atlantic.Global warming does not guarantee that each year will set records for hurricanes, according to Trenberth. He notes that last year's activity was related to very favorable upper-level winds as well as the extremely warm SSTs. Each year will bring ups and downs in tropical Atlantic SSTs due to natural variations, such as the presence or absence of El Nino, says Trenberth. However, he adds, the long-term ocean warming should raise the baseline of hurricane activity. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 20, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060620080654.htm | Hurricanes And The U.S. Gulf Coast: Science And Sustainable Rebuilding | The American Geophysical Union today published the report of a Conference of Experts, intended to guide policy makers charged with rebuilding areas affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The 20 scientists who participated in the conference looked at seven major areas: hurricanes, storm surge and flooding, subsidence, climate change, hydrology, infrastructure, and disaster preparedness and response. For each topic, they assessed current understanding of the phenomenon, near-term scientific needs, and longer-term directions. | Following is the text of the Executive Summary of the report. The full 30-page report may be seen at The knowledge available among AGU members provides scientific expertise on nearly all of the physical environment of the dynamic Gulf Coast ecosystem complex. Intelligently rebuilding features such as fisheries, oil fields, seaports, farms, and wetlands after hurricanes Katrina and Rita will require "a well-constructed collaborative effort to maximize the role of science in decisions made about the rebuilding," wrote Charles Groat, former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, in a news article published in Eos that stimulated an AGU meeting of experts. As a step toward developing a scientific basis for safer communities along the Florida-Alabama-Mississippi-Louisiana-Texas coastline, AGU convened an interdisciplinary 'Conference of Experts' on 11–12 January 2006 to discuss what we, as Earth and space scientists, know about the present and projected environment in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast areas affected by the hurricanes of 2005. Twenty scientists, all experts in the fields of science relevant to the Gulf Coast, met to consider ideas for a coordinated effort to integrate science into the decision-making processes necessary for the area's sustainable rebirth. Political, economic, and social issues were intentionally not discussed. Nevertheless, it was recognized that these issues are intertwined with science and are of paramount importance. This report contains a summary of the discussion and is intended to be helpful in providing scientific understanding useful in redevelopment of the affected area. The objectives of the meeting were to review and assess the scientific knowledge in the areas most relevant in hurricane protection, to identify gaps in knowledge that could be filled by focused research, and to propose mechanisms to link science to the most effective reconstruction of New Orleans and other coastal areas affected by the recent hurricanes. The meeting attendees considered seven topics addressing the current understanding, near-term needs, and longer-term directions for: hurricanes, storm surge and flooding, subsidence, climate change, hydrology, infrastructure, and disaster preparedness and response. The messages from the conference are as follows. While all hurricanes are detected before landfall and their trajectories known to some degree, predictions of cyclone intensity and structure still contain great uncertainty. Although there have been substantial increases in the accuracy of hurricane track prediction over the past decade, seasonal predictions have shown little skill, for example, predicting an increasing number of hurricanes when fewer actually occur. European ocean-atmosphere models, however, have demonstrated improved capability and may provide more reasonable approximations in the future. Rising sea surface temperatures, routinely observed through infrared and microwave emission satellite sensors, increase the tropical cyclone heat potential and contribute to tropical cyclone formation and their intensification. The conference participants proposed the use of improved seasonal forecasts such as those being applied in Europe. The basic physics of storm surge is well understood. Remarkably accurate numerical models have existed for approximately 25 years in the United States and abroad for geometrically simple coastal areas. Recent developments have allowed modeling of complex regions such as the Louisiana shoreline that include channels, levees, and buildings. Nevertheless, better wind data, enhanced shoreline topography, and improved techniques to assess the location and range of flooding are necessary in storm surge models for simulating the range of flooding probabilities. Such modeling scenarios can be used to predict the extent of damage such as levee overtopping, were such an extreme event to take place. In the longer term, advanced high-resolution data could provide even better approximations of inundation and expected damage from flooding, thus allowing cities and regional disaster mitigation agencies to prepare an appropriate response to an impending disaster. Natural processes as well as human impacts have contributed to subsidence, the sinking of land over time, along the Gulf Coast. Presently, there is considerable discussion and debate among the scientific community regarding mechanisms and rates of subsidence in the Mississippi delta area. Regional faulting, forced drainage, oil and gas extraction, and groundwater withdrawal all have led to lowering of the elevation of highways and levees below their originally designed levels. As a result of subsidence, new U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Base Flood Elevations maps that will be available for the area in 2007 may not be accurate; yet those maps will form the basis for flood control and establish levels for rebuilding. In the future, levees and other flood control systems should be designed and built to account for the amount of sea level rise and predicted subsidence expected over the design life of the structure. In designing new structures, consideration should be given to likely changes over time in storm surge, subsidence, and sea level. New and improved instrumentation would allow researchers to make better predictions of geological and subsidence processes. There are strong theoretical reasons to expect that warming of the oceans already has led to more intense hurricanes and will continue to affect tropical storm characteristics. Increasing ocean temperatures also cause sea level to rise due to thermal expansion and thus enhance storm surge. It is well established that a sea surface temperature of at least 26°C (79°F) is required for hurricane formation. Recent analyses have found that the frequency of intense hurricanes and severe rainfall has increased in recent decades. Hurricane strength and numbers are projected to increase further with rising ocean temperatures. The hurricane climatology of the twenty- first century will be quite different from that of the twentieth century. Planning should take into account the strong probability of more frequent and more intense hurricanes. In the near future, prediction models will be able to provide notice of exceptionally strong hurricane seasons more in advance than is presently possible. As these advances continue, and as more is known about the fundamental physical basis of climate change, hurricane response plans can be continually improved. Human settlement in New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast has greatly modified the natural conditions of the Mississippi River system. In New Orleans, for example, canals have been dredged for navigation and drainage, levees that limit flooding have been raised, tidal wetlands have been eliminated, and dams and locks have been constructed. As development projects have continued and expanded, the mechanisms that had preserved the Mississippi delta in the face of subsidence and erosion have been largely stifled. While the rebuilding of coastal communities has to account for such conditions, long-term flood protection will likely require reestablishing some natural systems such as wetlands that serve as a natural barrier adding some protection from storm surge and flooding. When floodwaters from hurricanes Katrina and Rita spilled through the Gulf Coast and breached the levee system in New Orleans, infrastructure damage ranged from unusable roads and bridges to inoperable telecommunications, electrical, and satellite observation systems. The breakdown of communications, both physical and organizational, will require extensive attention and modification. Additionally, ravaged systems such as navigation channels and coastal ports will require renovation and better protection against future damage. Improved models supported by a better understanding of the region's natural systems are needed to plan a unified system of storm protection. No matter how resilient the new Gulf Coast may be, preparation for future hurricanes will require development of the capability for massive and timely responses to protect resources and lives. Key to an effective response are detailed scenarios, maps, and visualizations of the affected areas. In addition, training of first responders is necessary so they can react to ever changing scientific data. Most critical is accurate information with three to four days notice that would provide time for evacuations, if necessary. Improved forecasts of hurricane trajectory, intensity, and structure are most vital to completing these tasks. The key objective of the conference of experts was to ensure the integration of science into the overall reconstruction efforts after the recent hurricane disasters along the Gulf Coast. Given the breadth of the Earth and space science topics within AGU's purview, the organization and member scientists are well prepared to discuss and demonstrate the relevance of sound science to decision-makers charged with rebuilding when future catastrophes strike. Several recommendations emerged from the conference that would continue the dialogue between scientists and planners at all levels. The suggestions are as follows: (1) Establish a multidisciplinary steering committee to maintain an overview on reconstruction and new threats to the region from natural disasters, and charge that committee with monitoring the rebuilding and identifying key scientific issues and assets to address these issues; (2) assemble a database of experts who would be available to provide scientific guidance as needed; and (3) provide periodic assessments of reconstruction and planning efforts. Successful and sustainable reconstruction of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and the effective planning for future hurricane events must incorporate the best available science. This can only be ensured by strong continuing interaction among scientists, planners, and decision-makers at all levels. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 8, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060608131958.htm | More Than One-third Of Disaster Victims May Suffer From Stress Disorder | In the year after a hurricane, tornado, terrorist attack or other natural or man-made disaster, 30 to 40 percent of adults who were directly affected may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a University of Michigan researcher. | In addition, approximately 10-to-20 percent of rescue workers and 5-to-10 percent of the general population may experience PTSD symptoms, including flashbacks, recurrent dreams of the event, survival guilt and hyper-vigilance."Our review of studies conducted in the aftermath of disasters during the past 40 years shows that there is a substantial burden of PTSD among people who experience a disaster," said Sandro Galea, lead author of an article on the topic appearing in the current issue of Epidemiologic Reviews."Our analysis also shows that the most important risk factors for the development of PTSD are the extent of exposure to the disaster and the scope of the disaster."Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the study considered the evidence from peer-reviewed studies conducted between 1980, when PTSD was first included as a disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition, and 2003.The earliest disaster included in the review was a 1963 landslide and flood that took place in northeastern Italy. The most recent was the September 11 terrorist attack in New York City.Although the prevalence of PTSD has previously been found to be higher after human-made and technological disasters than after natural disasters, Galea notes that this difference is largely due to differences in sampling."Most studies conducted after human-made and technological disasters have focused on direct victims, while studies of natural disasters typically include samples of people in the overall community who probably had substantially lower exposure to the disaster," he said.In addition to exposure to a disaster, a number of other risk factors for PTSD were found to be important across multiple studies.Women consistently have a higher prevalence of PTSID after disasters than men, as do persons with pre-existing or concurrent psychiatric disorders and those who have previously experienced traumatic events or substantial stress.Galea, an M.D. who is an associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health and a research affiliate at the U-M Institute for Social Research, is involved in several other ongoing research projects related to the mental health consequences of disasters.One is a study of mental health service use among uniformed service providers in New York City in the first five years after the September 11 attacks. Another is a study of how social context, including income inequality, influences an individual's underlying strengths and vulnerabilities in the aftermath of a disaster. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
June 1, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060601092002.htm | Sinking Levees: New Report Maps Subsidence, Addresses Flooding In New Orleans | Most of New Orleans is sinking at an average rate of 6mm a year. In some areas, subsidence is occurring at a rate of as much as 29mm/year. That's according to research published in this week's edition of the journal Nature by scientists from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. Titled, "Subsidence and Flooding in New Orleans," the authors conclude that when global sea level rise is factored into their analysis, the average rate of subsidence of the city relative to sea level is even higher -- 8mm on average per year. | "When you multiply this over 20, 30, or even 100 years, you can see that New Orleans will be lower, and this information should be factored into reconstruction plans, as we look at subsidence that is up to 3 feet in 40 years," said the lead author of the paper, Dr. Tim Dixon, Rosenstiel School geophysics professor. "What we found is that some of the levee failure in New Orleans were places where subsidence was highest. These levees were built over 40 years ago and in some cases, the ground had subsided a minimum of 3 feet which probably put them lower than their design level." Through analysis of satellite radar imagery, and using structures in the city that strongly reflect the radar signal, the researchers were able to see where land is subsiding the most in New Orleans. The team generated a map from space-based synthetic-aperture radar measurements, and note in their paper that it "revealed that parts of New Orleans underwent rapid subsidence in the three years before Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. One such area was next to the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO) canal: levees failed here during the peak storm surge and the new map indicates that this could be explained by subsidence of a meter or more since the levee's construction." To make the map, the team used 33 scenes recorded from Canada's RADARSAT satellite. The technique involves phase comparison of 33 radar images taken at different times along the same orbit and exploits points on the ground that strongly reflect radar, termed "permanent scatterers." "While it may not trouble people that the ground is nearly one inch lower each year in places, in the long term, the impacts could be rather significant," said Dr. Falk Amelung, one of the paper's co-authors, also from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School. "While most people aren't accustomed to thinking about 100 years out, it's important to recognize that a large part of New Orleans is sitting on sediments that will only continue to sink into the Gulf of Mexico, and it will only get harder and harder to ensure the levees' durability. By 2106, for example, the ground will be nearly three feet lower on average." "Global warming poses further challenges to this issue, as well," said Shimon Wdowinski another co-author from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School. "As the larger Mississippi Delta slowly slides into the Gulf of Mexico, the levees will be further tested if global warming increases the intensity and frequency of hurricanes." The researchers conclude that their subsidence estimates for the levees "are probably minimum estimates when considered over the lifetime of the levees, given that subsidence was most rapid in the first few years after their construction in the 1960s. Levee failure may have resulted from overtopping because the levees were too low. "Data from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers collected after hurricanes Katrina and Rita confirm that water overtopped some levees that subsequently failed. Alternatively, the high subsidence rates the team observed might reflect active faulting or a weak, easily compacted soil, promoting failure at or near the levee base."Additional authors on the paper include: Alessandro Ferretti and Fabrizio Novali of Tele-Rilevamento Europa; Fabio Rocca of Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano; Roy Dokka of Louisiana State University; Giovanni Sella from the National Geodetic Survey; Sang-Wan Kim from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School; and Dean Whitman from the Florida International University Department of Earth Sciences. Rosenstiel School is part of the University of Miami and, since its founding in the 1940s, has grown into one of the world's premier marine and atmospheric research institutions. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
May 30, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060530175230.htm | Climate Change Responsible For Increased Hurricanes, Researchers Find | Human induced climate change, rather than naturally occurring ocean cycles, may be responsible for the recent increases in frequency and strength of North Atlantic hurricanes, according to Penn State and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers. | “Anthropogenic factors are likely responsible for long-term trends in tropical Atlantic warmth and tropical cyclone activity,” the researchers report in an upcoming issue of the American Geophysical Society’s EOS.Michael E. Mann, associate professor of meteorology and geosciences, Penn State, and Kerry A. Emanuel, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT, looked at the record of global sea surface temperatures, hurricane frequency, aerosol impacts and the so-called Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) – an ocean cycle similar, but weaker and less frequent than the El Nino/La Nina cycle. Although others have suggested that the AMO, a cycle of from 50 to 70 years, is the significant contributing factor to the increase in number and strength of hurricanes, their statistical analysis and modeling indicate that it is only the tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature that is responsible, tempered by the cooling effects of some lower atmospheric pollutants.“We only have a good record of hurricanes and sea surface temperature for a little more than the last 100 years,” says Mann, who is also director of Penn State’s Earth System Science Center. “This means we have only observed about one and a half to two cycles of the AMO. Peer-reviewed research does suggest that the signal exists, but it is difficult to estimate the period and magnitude of the oscillation directly from observations.”To determine the contributions of sea surface warming, the AMO and any other factors to increased hurricane activity, the researchers used a statistical method that allows them to subtract the effect of variables they know have influence to see what is left.“There appears to be a strong historical relationship between variations in tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature and tropical cyclone activity extending back through the 19th century,” say Mann and Emanuel.The cause of increased tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures is the real question. One contributor must be overall global sea surface temperature trends. The researchers looked at the sea surface temperature record in the tropical Atlantic and compared it to global sea surface temperatures. They found that the tropical temperatures did closely follow the global temperatures, but that global fluctuation did not account for everything. They first found what appeared, at least superficially, to be a significant influence from the AMO in the tropical Atlantic.To test if the fluctuation was indeed due to the AMO, they looked only at data from before 1950. They found that the apparent AMO signal became indistinguishable from the statistical noise if the recent cooling trend between 1950 and the 1980s was not included.“This pattern of late 20th century cooling has been attributed in past work to the anthropogenic production of tropospheric aerosol,” note Mann and Emanuel in their paper. This human-caused cooling, they found, was masquerading as part of an apparent natural oscillation.While some gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane in the upper atmosphere create the greenhouse effect associated with global warming, other pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the lower atmosphere cool the Earth’s surface by reflecting sunlight.Because of prevailing winds and air currents, pollutants from North American and Europe move into the area above the tropical Atlantic. The impact is greatest during the late summer when the reflection of sunlight by these pollutants is greatest, exactly at the time of highest hurricane activity.When Mann and Emanuel use both global temperature trends and the enhanced regional cooling impact of the pollutants, they are able to explain the observed trends in both tropical Atlantic temperatures and hurricane numbers, without any need to invoke the role of a natural oscillation such as the AMO.Without taking into account the mitigating effect of pollutants, the results were higher than what had actually occurred. This suggests that the cooling from pollutants in the atmosphere tempered the rise of sea surface temperatures and hurricane numbers.However, the industrialized world is doing much better at controlling pollution. North America and Europe have both reduced the amounts of aerosols they put into the atmosphere. The cooling effect has been decreasing since the 1980s.Absent the mitigating cooling trend, tropical sea surface temperatures are rising. If the AMO, a regional effect, is not contributing significantly to the increase, than the increase must come from general global warming, which most researchers attribute to human actions. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
May 24, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060523085834.htm | NOAA Expects Below Average 2006 East Pacific Hurricane Season | The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released its 2006 east Pacific hurricane season outlook — predicting a below average season with 12 to 16 tropical storms, of which six to eight could become hurricanes, including one to three major hurricanes of category 3 strength or greater. | An average east Pacific hurricane season features 15 to 16 tropical storms, with nine becoming hurricanes, including four to five major hurricanes.“The last three east Pacific hurricane seasons have been below normal, following an overall trend of lower activity since 1995,” said Jim Laver, director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center in Camp Springs, Md. Neutral El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions are expected across the equatorial Pacific during the next three to six months. “Therefore neither El Niño nor La Niña will likely be a factor in this year’s hurricane season,” added Laver.“At present, the leading climate pattern affecting the east Pacific hurricane season is a multi-decadal signal, which contributes to stronger easterly winds at jet stream level and hence higher easterly wind shear,” said Muthuvel Chelliah, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center lead scientist on the east Pacific hurricane season outlook. Wind shear refers to the change in winds between the lower and upper atmosphere. Higher wind shear inhibits hurricane formation. “Since 1995, despite the trend to warmer waters in the tropical east Pacific, higher wind shear has contributed to fewer tropical storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes,” noted Chelliah.Most tropical storms and hurricanes that form in the east Pacific generally move towards the open expanse of the Pacific Ocean and do not make landfall. However during any given season a storm or two may affect western Mexico, Central America and the southwestern United States, as was the case with Hurricane Ignacio in 2003 and Hurricane Adrian in 2005.Despite the forecast for a below-average season, coastal residents are encouraged to be prepared and stay informed because it only takes one hurricane strike to create significant impacts. The east Pacific hurricane season runs from May 15 through November 30, with peak activity occurring during July through September.The east Pacific hurricane season outlook is a product of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, National Hurricane Center, and Hurricane Research Division. NOAA’s National Hurricane Center has hurricane forecasting responsibilities for the east Pacific as well as the north Atlantic.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and 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 our federal partners and more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global earth observation network that is as integrated as the planet it observes. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
May 23, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060523085540.htm | Very Active North Atlantic Hurricane Season Predicted | The U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has announced that a very active hurricane season is looming, and encouraged individuals to make preparations to better protect their lives and livelihoods. May 21-27 is National Hurricane Preparedness Week. | During a news conference at the NOAA National Hurricane Center, Deputy Secretary of Commerce David A. Sampson noted, "Preparation is the key message that President Bush wants to convey during National Hurricane Preparedness Week. The impact from these storms extends well beyond coastal areas so it is vital that residents in hurricane prone areas get ready in advance of the hurricane season.""For the 2006 north Atlantic hurricane season, NOAA is predicting 13 to 16 named storms, with eight to 10 becoming hurricanes, of which four to six could become 'major' hurricanes of Category 3 strength or higher," added retired Navy Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Ph.D., undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.On average, the north Atlantic hurricane season produces 11 named storms, with six becoming hurricanes, including two major hurricanes. In 2005, the Atlantic hurricane season contained a record 28 storms, including 15 hurricanes. Seven of these hurricanes were considered "major," of which a record four hit the United States. "Although NOAA is not forecasting a repeat of last year's season, the potential for hurricanes striking the U.S. is high," added Lautenbacher.Warmer ocean water combined with lower wind shear, weaker easterly trade winds, and a more favorable wind pattern in the mid-levels of the atmosphere are the factors that collectively will favor the development of storms in greater numbers and to greater intensity. Warm water is the energy source for storms while favorable wind patterns limit the wind shear that can tear apart a storm's building cloud structure.This confluence of conditions in the ocean and atmosphere is strongly related to a climate pattern known as the multi-decadal signal, which has been in place since 1995. Since then, nine of the last 11 hurricane seasons have been above normal, with only two below-normal seasons during the El Niño years of 1997 and 2002.With neutral El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions expected across the equatorial Pacific during the next three to six months, the NOAA Climate Prediction Center scientists say that neither El Niño nor La Niña likely will be a factor in this year's hurricane season."Whether we face an active hurricane season, like this year, or a below-normal season, the crucial message for every person is the same: prepare, prepare, prepare," said Max Mayfield, director of the NOAA National Hurricane Center. "One hurricane hitting where you live is enough to make it a bad season."The north Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30. NOAA will issue a mid-season update in early August just prior to the normal August through October peak in activity.The north Atlantic hurricane seasonal outlook is a product of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, National Hurricane Center and Hurricane Research Division. The NOAA National Hurricane Center has hurricane forecasting responsibilities for the north Atlantic as well as the east Pacific regions.NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, 61 countries and the European Commission to develop a global network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
May 16, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060516160127.htm | Tropical Depression: Hurricane Linked To Long-term Mental Distress | Florida State University sociologists in Tallahassee, Fla. have found that some South Floridians who survived 1992's Hurricane Andrew suffered mental health problems many years later, a finding that has led the researchers to predict even more dire consequences for those who lived through last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina. | The researchers, sociology doctoral student and lead author David Russell and professors John Taylor and Donald Lloyd, presented their findings at the 2006 annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society held recently in New Orleans. Although the short-term mental health consequences of Hurricane Andrew have been documented, this study of adolescents is the first to show that it had long-term effects on mental health. "We found that people who experienced prior stressful events and who had pre-existing symptoms of psychological distress were more adversely affected by exposure to hurricane-related stressful events," Russell said. "Based on our findings, we believe intervention efforts should include assessments of the prior experiences and psychological well-being of disaster victims. Doing so will aid response workers in identifying those most at risk for developing post-disaster psychological problems." The findings suggest that the mental health consequences of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, will be even greater. Although the storms were similar in strength, the human and economic costs associated with Katrina far exceeded those of Andrew. Deaths associated with Katrina were more than 50 times greater than those attributed to Andrew, and economic analysts predict that the total economic cost of Katrina will surpass $200 billion, which is more than five times the cost of Andrew. "We believe that victims of Hurricane Katrina will be at an increased risk for mental health problems for many years to come," Russell said. "The extent of damage was widespread and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and families. Those aspects of the storm mean that many people were exposed to some degree of adversity, and that puts them at greater risk for mental health problems both immediately and over a long period of time." Delays in rescuing people who were stranded by the flooding in New Orleans compounded the anguish of the Katrina survivors, the researchers noted. "The slow response by governmental agencies to rescue the victims produced feelings of hopelessness, isolation and anger," Russell said. "In the meantime, exposure to human carnage has placed victims and recovery workers at great risk for a wide array of psychological problems." Hurricane Andrew, a Category 5 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, hit South Florida on Aug. 24, 1992. The hurricane caused 25 deaths in Miami-Dade County alone. At the time, the damage inflicted by Andrew was unprecedented in U.S. history with total economic losses estimated at $35 billion. More than 250,000 people were left homeless, and the community's recovery from the storm took years. The researchers studied data from 975 Miami-Dade County adolescents who lived through Hurricane Andrew to assess psychological distress before, during and five to seven years after the storm. They measured disruption by counting the occurrence of five events: damage to one's home; being away from home for longer than a week; injury to a family member; having one or both parents lose a job; and having to stay in a shelter. Not only did Andrew cause emotional distress immediately following the hurricane, the researchers found that it indirectly affected mental health years later. The storm of emotion following the hurricane increased risk for certain stressful life events, such as failing a grade in school, being sent away from home or having to live away from parents. Russell said the findings likely underestimated the true psychological impact of Hurricane Andrew because those most adversely affected by the hurricane may have relocated from the Miami-Dade area, and thus would have been left out of the follow-up surveys. In addition, the study measured some but not all of the common experiences associated with the disaster, such as perceptions of safety during the storm, loss of personal belongings and living without electricity and adequate food or water after the storm. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
May 10, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060510095522.htm | Monster Hurricanes: Study Questions Linkage Between Severe Hurricanes And Global Warming | New research calls into question the linkage between major Atlantic hurricanes and global warming. That is one of the conclusions from a University of Virginia study to appear in the May 10, 2006 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. | In recent years, a large number of severe Atlantic hurricanes have fueled a debate as to whether global warming is responsible. Because high sea-surface temperatures fuel tropical cyclones, this linkage seems logical. In fact, within the past year, several hurricane researchers have correlated basin-wide warming trends with increasing hurricane severity and have implicated a greenhouse-warming cause. But unlike these prior studies, the U.Va. climatologists specifically examined water temperatures along the path of each storm, providing a more precise picture of the tropical environment involved in each hurricane's development. They found that increasing water temperatures can account for only about half of the increase in strong hurricanes over the past 25 years; therefore the remaining storminess increase must be related to other factors. "It is too simplistic to only implicate sea surface temperatures in the dramatic increase in the number of major hurricanes," said lead author Patrick Michaels, U.Va. professor of environmental sciences and director of the Virginia Climatology Office. For a storm to reach the status of a major hurricane, a very specific set of atmospheric conditions must be met within the region of the storm's development, and only one of these factors is sufficiently high sea-surface temperatures. The authors found that the ultimate strength of a hurricane is not directly linked to the underlying water temperatures. Instead, they found that a temperature threshold, 89?F, must be crossed before a weak tropical cyclone has the potential to become a monster hurricane. Once the threshold is crossed, water temperature is no longer an important factor. "At that point, other factors take over, such as the vertical wind profile, and atmospheric temperature and moisture gradients," Michaels said. While there has been extensive recent discussion about whether or not human-induced global warming is currently playing a role in the increased frequency and intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, Michaels downplays this impact, at least for the current climate. "The projected impacts of global warming on Atlantic hurricanes are minor compared with the major changes that we have observed over the past couple of years," Michaels said. He points instead to naturally varying components of the tropical environment as being the primary reason for the recent enhanced activity. "Some aspects of the tropical environment have evolved much differently than they were expected to under the assumption that only increasing greenhouse gases were involved. This leads me to believe that natural oscillations have also been responsible for what we have seen," Michaels said. But what if sea-surface temperatures continue to rise into the future, if the world continues to warm from an enhancing greenhouse effect? "In the future we may expect to see more major hurricanes," Michaels said, "but we don't expect the ones that do form to be any stronger than the ones that we have seen in the past."Michaels' co-authors are Robert E. Davis, associate professor of environmental sciences and Paul C. Knappenberger, former U.Va. graduate student in environmental sciences. Reference: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
May 5, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060505120655.htm | La Nina Will Have No Effect On 2006 Atlantic Hurricanes | NASA oceanographers agree that the recent La Nina in the eastern Pacific Ocean is not expected to have an effect on the Atlantic hurricane season this year. That is good news, because normally a La Niña tends to increase Atlantic hurricane activity and decrease Pacific Ocean hurricanes. | Although La Nina occurs in the Pacific, it affects weather in the Atlantic Ocean as well, through changes in the winds. La Niña changes the wind patterns in the upper and lower levels of the atmosphere, which make it easier for hurricanes to form in the Atlantic and harder in the eastern Pacific. In the Atlantic, the winds that would normally tear a hurricane's circular motion apart are lessened but they increase in the eastern Pacific.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center is the federal agency that monitors La Nina conditions such as cooler than normal sea surface temperatures, precipitation and winds. According to their latest report on April 6, 2006, sea surface temperatures were warming back to normal. That latest report stated that during the month of April, sea surface temperatures were slightly cooler than normal in the extreme eastern equatorial Pacific, and conditions returned to near average in that region.David Adamec, an oceanographer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. said that "the current temperature signal at the end of April is near normal and the ocean surface temperature has not yet caused the atmosphere to respond in a La Nina-like way." Adamec used what is called a NASA coupled atmosphere-ocean land computer model. This model, developed at Goddard, is used for experimental forecasts of the ocean, land and atmosphere for periods 3-12 months in the future. The data used came from 2 NASA satellites: Jason and QuikSCAT. Jason provided sea-surface height information, and QuikSCAT provided surface wind data.Adamec said that in order for La Nina to have an effect on the Atlantic Ocean hurricane season, it would have to exist for a much longer time, especially into peak hurricane season which is August and September.Further, he said, another factor associated with La Nina is the Southern Oscillation Index, is also normal. The Southern Oscillation Index is an atmospheric pressure indicator of the large scale surface winds. "La Nina is already a memory," said Adamec.According to 12 major ocean-atmosphere computer models, the equatorial Pacific will be neutral to warm in August, when it really matters for hurricanes. August and September are the peak season for hurricane formation in the Atlantic Ocean. According to scientists, the atmosphere takes about two weeks to "react" to a change in ocean surface temperature.Forecasters and other scientists still expect a greater than average number of Atlantic Ocean hurricanes this year, but La Nina will not be a factor in that. The more active season is expected because of other environmental conditions favorable to hurricanes, such as the location of the Bermuda high removing much of the wind shear in the western Atlantic that thwarts hurricanes, warm sea surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico.La Niña also influences where Atlantic hurricanes form. During La Niña more hurricanes form in the deep Tropics from African easterly waves. Easterly waves are "long waves" in the atmosphere that occur between 5-15 degrees North that start in Africa and move across the Atlantic Ocean. About 60% of the Atlantic tropical storms and minor hurricanes originate from easterly waves.According to NOAA, these systems have a much greater likelihood of becoming major hurricanes and of eventually threatening the U.S. and Caribbean Islands.Bill Patzert, oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. noted that, "The recent increased frequency of the hurricanes is thought to be part of a larger decades-long cycle of alternating increases and decreases of hurricane activity. The current busy hurricane cycle began in 1995 and could continue for another 10 to 25 years. For the U.S. East and Gulf coasts, the fading La Nina is a real good thing, but Atlantic sea surface temperatures are still very toasty. It's the summer conditions that will dictate the fall hurricane activity, and I suspect those forecasts will be modified." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
April 27, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060426182053.htm | NASA Dis-assembles And Re-assembles Tropical Storm Gert | To figure out how something mechanical works, people take it apart and look at its components, then try and put it back together. That's what NASA researchers are doing with hurricanes, to try to figure out what makes them tick. For Tropical Storm Gert, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico in July 2005, they found that the mountainous areas of Mexico helped the storm to form. | To see how a hurricane works, scientists take readings of all its pieces: wind, rain, temperature, humidity and air pressure. They can also use computer models to try to re-create the storm's conditions. By comparing model simulations to actual observations of the storm, they can determine how good or bad the models are. If the models do poorly, scientists try to figure out what went wrong. If they do well, scientists can then use the model results to try to better understand how hurricanes form and intensify. Researchers did this after the summer of 2005, using Gert as a test case to make sure that their computer models were accurately "re-assembling" the storm as it appeared.Scott Braun, Atmospheric scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and his co-author on the Gert study, Michael T. Montgomery, an Atmospheric scientist from Colorado State University, took data produced by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction about the state of the atmosphere during Gert, and used it in their computer model. The model produced a re-creation of Tropical Storm Gert. Their conclusions were presented at the American Meteorological Society's 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology the week of April 24, 2006, in Monterey, Calif.If one used only actual observations to figure out what makes a storm tick, it would be much more difficult because these observations are very limited in space and time. If scientists can trust that a computer model did a good job, they can use the model's information to figure out what is happening everywhere in the storm at all times. This will help scientists learn much more than they could from the observations alone.The Gert data was gathered by a large mission called the Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes Experiment, or TCSP, which included airplanes that dropped sensors called "dropsondes" into the storminess of Gert to get wind, temperature and humidity data. Other data used to check the accuracy of the computer model include flight-level winds from the NOAA P-3 aircraft, NASA ER-2 Doppler radar data, and precipitation information from a direct overpass of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite.Gert began as a low pressure area that formed in the Gulf of Honduras just east of Chetumal, Mexico on July 22. The low quickly moved inland over Yucatan, then into the Bay of Campeche early on the 23rd. A tropical depression formed on July 23 about 255 nautical miles east-southeast of Tuxpan, Mexico. The depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Gert on July 24th."We examined the role that topography in Mexico played in the development of Tropical Storm Gert," said Braun. They found that the mountains blocked the flow of air at low levels, which according to the computer model was critical in helping Gert form. As the weak disturbance that eventually became Gert moved into the Gulf of Mexico, the easterly winds associated with it ran up against the mountains of Mexico along the western side of the Gulf. When air flow like this encounters such an obstacle, it has two options.Under the right conditions, air flow could simply go up and over the mountains. However, under other conditions (when the air is stable), the air encounters more resistance to upward movement and must go around the mountains. That is what happened in Gert's case. As the easterly winds hit the mountains, they were forced to turn to the southeast in a direction parallel to the mountains. By turning the flow partially back in the direction from which it came, the mountains increased the large-scale rotation of the winds over the Gulf, thereby providing a more favorable environment for Gert to form and intensify.This may not necessarily apply to all storms in the Gulf. Gert was probably a borderline storm that needed help to form. While some systems like Gert may occasionally need help to develop, many other storms do not require such help, but can develop easily on their own. Scientists don't know how often storms might need this type of help. Even if it is not often, knowing how those kinds of storms develop is still important to those people who are impacted by them. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
April 24, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060424181112.htm | NASA Data Combined To Improve Hurricane Landfall Forecasts | Data gathered from last year's NASA hurricane research mission and a NASA satellite have improved tropical storm landfall and storm strength forecasts in computer models. | Ocean surface wind data gathered from NASA's QuikSCAT satellite were combined with data from aircraft sensors dropped into tropical storms and fed into a new generation weather research and forecasting (WRF) computer model used to predict weather. The researchers in this study also used data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-11 satellite rapid-scan cloud track wind data. When the data were added, the resulting prediction showed improved track and intensity forecast of tropical storms."Our results indicate the quite positive impact of those data on forecasts of two landfall storms in last season: tropical storms Cindy and Gert." said Zhaoxia Pu, scientist at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and lead researcher on the study. She reported the results on April 24 at the American Meteorological Society’s Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology in Monterey, Calif. The detailed results of this study have been submitted to the Monthly Weather Review for publication."By incorporating the aircraft sensor and QuiKSCAT data, the new generation WRF computer model was able to reproduce structure of the rainfalls that caused the flooding during the landfall of two storms," Pu said.In July 2005, the Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission investigated two hurricanes and several tropical storms. The mission was based at the Juan Santamaria Airfield in San Jose, Costa Rica, and flew 13 NASA ER-2 science flights, including missions to Hurricanes Dennis and Emily. NASA, NOAA, and the Costa Rican Centro Nacional de Alta Tecnologia were participants in the mission.The P-3 aircraft from the NOAA Hurricane Research Division flew 20 coordinated missions with the NASA research aircraft to investigate developing tropical disturbances. Sensors dropped from airplanes, called dropsondes, gathered data on temperature, winds, pressure and humidity inside the storms.The team also employed small, unmanned aerial vehicles, a series of balloon-borne weather probes and several low-earth, polar-orbiting and geostationary NASA and NOAA satellites.The results from this study imply that satellite data are a valuable source for improving tropical cyclone forecasts. In addition, the 2005 field experiment provided valuable data and opportunities for better understanding tropical cyclones.The new generation WRF computer model is widely used for forecasting and research. It has been used by many local government agencies, research institutes and commercial industries for real-time forecasts.Pu said that NASA data's enhancement of WRF hurricane computer model forecasts will encourage the forecast community to incorporate it in all future hurricane forecasts. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
April 3, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060402220913.htm | Tutored By Sept. 11 Experience, Genetics Experts Aid Efforts To Identify Hurricane Katrina Victims | Experts at Johns Hopkins are joining efforts to identify more than 70 bodies recovered after Hurricane Katrina, which struck last Aug. 29, killing more than 1,200 in Louisiana and Mississippi. Most of those killed have already been identified and buried by their families. | Using experience gained in DNA analysis of human remains after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Hopkins epidemiologists and genetic counselors are helping Louisiana state officials with the complex task of collecting data on family history, a key step in the complex system of DNA testing that state officials must use to match the dead to some of the families of more than 2,000 people still listed as missing from the disaster. "Both disasters, the attack on the World Trade Center and Hurricane Katrina, have challenged the nation's abilities to handle mass-fatality identification beyond anything ever experienced before," says Joan Bailey-Wilson, Ph.D., an adjunct professor at Hopkins and statistical geneticist. Bailey-Wilson, also co-chief of the Inherited Disease Research Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute, a member of the National Institutes of Health, has been coordinating national efforts of other geneticists who have volunteered from across the country to assist with victim identification in the Gulf region. She sits on an expert panel, along with Hopkins' Elizabeth Pugh, Ph.D., M.P.H., a genetic epidemiologist, to advise crime lab staff and the coroners' offices in both states responsible for identifying the dead and missing. It is a repeat role for the two, who also served on a panel for the medical examiner's office in New York City after the World Trade Center attacks five years ago. Bailey-Wilson and Pugh have both visited the Gulf region since November 2005 to assist the Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory with its efforts to manage the identification process and collection of buccal swabs (of the mouth cavity) from family members of the missing, almost all of whom are from Louisiana. "Pulling together the infrastructure - from experts in various disciplines and from medical centers across the country - is a skill that forensics experts learned from 9/11, but most of us hoped it was a once-in-a-lifetime event," says Bailey-Wilson. According to the Hopkins experts, the DNA identification process following Katrina is a more complex job than initially thought. That is because many of Katrina's missing victims lost their identifying personal effects in the disaster as well. Items such as toothbrushes and hairbrushes, which could contain hair and saliva samples useful in DNA testing, were often contaminated or destroyed by the flooding. Many medical and dental records normally used to match dead bodies with names of the missing were destroyed, leaving few clues behind as to whose remains were found. All of these make identification difficult - without the aid of DNA testing. Making matters worse, family members whose DNA is required to make a match were also displaced by the hurricane, making contact difficult and adding delays to scheduling interviews and appointments for genetic testing. "One of the lessons learned from 9/11 was that talking to the families about the missing is skilled detective work that can best be done by qualified genetics clinicians and genetic counselors who know the right questions to ask based on what information is needed to fill in the family pedigree," says Pugh, an assistant professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and head of statistical genetics at the Center for Inherited Disease Research (CIDR), an NIH-funded initiative based at Hopkins. CIDR is a high-tech facility dedicated to helping scientists at the NIH, Hopkins and elsewhere get a first fix on the regions of the human genetic code containing genes that contribute to complex diseases. "In today's world of blended families and multiple marriages, not all siblings are biologically related to one another. And trained interview techniques are needed to separate the correct blood relationships involving DNA from the correct social relationships that do not involve any genetic material." Bailey-Wilson, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, notes that since September 2005, she has fielded several hundred inquiries from health professionals wanting to help. Of these, more than 70 geneticists from at least 30 medical institutions and private practices have agreed to serve as volunteers in efforts to collect information on family history. Genetic counselor Julie Albertus, M.S., was the first Hopkins counselor to join the effort, having left for the Gulf region on March 12. Nicole Johnson, Sc.M., C.G.C., and the Kennedy Krieger Institute's Rebecca Kern, M.G.C., were next and departed on March 19. They, like Albertus, worked for one week at the Louisiana Family Assistance Center, formerly called the Find Family National Call Center, in Baton Rouge, La., where investigative operations are based. Plans are under way to send another counselor in June. While there, counselors interview relatives by phone to help construct complex family trees of those presumed lost, a necessary first step in the identification of the dead using DNA testing. In DNA-marker testing, a person's unique genetic makeup is matched against other previously known samples or, if none exist, samples taken from family members, looking for unique genetic traits or markers specific to the individual or family. The results from the DNA analysis can be used alone or combined with other information, such as body location and distinguishing features, for the state coroner to make an official identification. Compiling a genetic picture of the family, however, requires an accurate construction of the family tree, so that the minimum amount of genetic information needed can be obtained from siblings or parents, or from cousins and grandparents. "If a missing aunt, for example, has no children and only one sibling, taking a family history can be simple. However, if a missing aunt has eight children and five siblings, taking down the correct information and determining which relatives are willing to donate DNA samples can be a sensitive and time-consuming task," says Bailey-Wilson, who recalls that family interviews can last anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours. Indeed, she notes, the process is made even more difficult by the fact that many of the relatives are themselves displaced from their homes and may have had to move several times since the hurricane. Tracking this process for each missing person and casualty involves tremendous attention to detail, adds Pugh, who helped the Louisiana State Police Crime Laboratory's DNA unit set up one of the computer systems and protocols that will guide the identification process. She points out that the whole identification effort follows strict confidentially rules to protect people's privacy. A person's DNA contains all the genetic information passed down from their parents, but slightly different - though mostly similar - combinations are passed along to siblings. Recognizable but distinct patterns can be seen in cousins, but with greater difficulty, and often requiring specialized tests. Statistical methods are used to compare and match DNA samples to determine how likely it is that genetic markers for an unidentified deceased person fit into the pattern of genetic markers observed in relatives of someone reported missing. According to Pugh, genetic testing is made easier by commercially available computer software programs to analyze DNA results. These programs can statistically match any individual with genetic material from the same person or with that of family members using as few as 16 unique genetic markers. "One of our major tasks is to contact the families of those still reported missing and to obtain the DNA samples that will give us the best chance to identify their loved one," says Bailey-Wilson. "The work of volunteers and staff at the Louisiana Family Assistance Center and the State Police Crime Lab is helping these families, but it is also bridging the gap between genetic and forensic medicine to help make our country better prepared to deal with a massive disaster of this nature," says Bailey-Wilson, who like Pugh, has ties to the Gulf regions, where both studied and worked for several years. But Johnson takes a much more simple view of her potential and willingness to offer assistance. When asked to describe her motivation for volunteering, she says, "Just knowing of the grief these families are going through is what motivates me. This is something I can do in my own small way to help out." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
March 17, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060317114727.htm | Century Of Data Shows Intensification Of Water Cycle But No Increase In Storms Or Floods | A review of the findings from more than 100 peer-reviewed studies shows that although many aspects of the global water cycle have intensified, including precipitation and evaporation, this trend has not consistently resulted in an increase in the frequency or intensity of tropical storms or floods over the past century. The USGS findings, which have implications on the effect of global climate change, are published in the Journal of Hydrology. | "A key question in the global climate debate is if the climate warms in the future, will the water cycle intensify and what will be the nature of that intensification," said USGS scientist Thomas Huntington, who authored the study. "This is important because intensification of the water cycle could change water availability and increase the frequency of tropical storms, floods, and droughts, and increased water vapor in the atmosphere could amplify climate warming." For the report, Huntington reviewed data presented in more than 100 scientific studies. Although data are not complete, and sometimes contradictory, the weight of evidence from past studies shows on a global scale that precipitation, runoff, atmospheric water vapor, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, growing season length, and wintertime mountain glacier mass are all increasing. The key point with the glaciers is that there is more snowfall resulting in more wintertime mass accumulation -- another indication of intensification. "This intensification has been proposed and would logically seem to result in more flooding and more intense tropical storm seasons. But over the observational period, those effects are just not borne out by the data in a consistent way," said Huntington. Huntington notes that the long term and global scale of this study could accommodate significant variability, for example, the last two Atlantic hurricane seasons. "We are talking about two possible overall responses to global climate warming: first an intensification of the water cycle being manifested by more moisture in the air, more precipitation, more runoff, more evapotranspiration, which we do see in this study; and second, the potential effects of the intensification that would include more flooding and more tropical storms which we don't see in this study," said Huntington. Editors: Copies of the report "Evidence for intensification of the global water cycle: Review and synthesis," are available to reporters from the author. The USGS serves the nation by providing reliable scientific information to: describe and understand the Earth; minimize loss of life and property from natural disasters; manage water, biological, energy, and mineral resources; and enhance and protect our quality of life. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
March 16, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060316182908.htm | Strong Storms Linked With Rising Sea Surface Temperatures | Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have released a study supporting the findings of several studies last year linking an increase in the strength of hurricanes around the world to a global increase in sea surface temperature. The new study strengthens the link between the increase in hurricane intensity and the increase in tropical sea surface temperature. It found that while factors such as wind shear do affect the intensity of individual storms or storm seasons, they don't account for the global 35-year increase in the number of the most intense hurricanes. | Last summer, the journals Nature and Science published studies claiming to show a very strong link between rising tropical sea surface temperatures and an increase in the strength of hurricanes. The Nature study, by Kerry Emanuel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, concluded that cyclonic storms in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceanic basins were increasing in strength and duration. That increase, Emanuel concluded, was due to increasing sea surface temperatures caused, in part, by global warming. A month later, the journal Science published research linking an increase in sea surface temperatures over the past 35 years to a near doubling in the number of the strongest hurricanes, those labeled Category 4 or 5. The study, authored by Peter Webster, Judith Curry and Hai-Ru Chang at Georgia Tech and Greg Holland at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, examined hurricanes in all oceanic basins that play host to cyclonic storms around the world. This latest study sought to determine whether factors other than sea surface temperatures could be significantly contributing to this 35-year trend. Georgia Tech researchers Carlos Hoyos and Paula Agudelo, along with Curry and Webster examined three factors: vertical wind shear (changes in wind speed and direction with height); humidity in the lower atmosphere; and zonal stretching deformation, which is the tendency of the winds to rotate in a cyclonic direction. "If you examine the intensification of a single storm, or even the statistics on intensification for a particular season, factors like wind shear can play an important role," said Curry, professor and chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech. "However, there is no global trend in wind shear or the other factors over the 35-year period." Curry said they did see a small but significant trend in increasing wind shear strength in the North Atlantic, but that the sea surface temperatures were the dominant influence on the increase in both global hurricane intensity as well as the intensity of the North Atlantic hurricanes. "With this new paper, we firm up the link between the increase in sea surface temperatures and hurricane intensity, which has been a key issue in the debate about whether global warming is causing an increase in hurricane intensity," said Curry.The study appears online in the March 16 edition of Science Express.The study was supported by the Climate Dynamics Division of the National Science Foundation. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
February 6, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/02/060205235858.htm | NASA Post-hurricane Katrina Images Available On Google Earth | When Hurricane Katrina made landfall in August 2005, it changed the look of some of the coastlines of three U.S. states. Now, using Google Earth’s software on the Internet, people can see the before and after affects, thanks to detailed images from NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). | The images on Google Earth show changes that Hurricane Katrina made to the Gulf coast from Panama City, Fla. to New Orleans, La.Hurricane Katrina made landfall in south Plaquemines Parish, La., near the towns of Empire, Buras and Boothville, on Aug. 29, 2005, at approximately 7:10 a.m. CDT. It caused widespread destruction in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama and turned out to be the most expensive hurricane in the history of the United States, causing an estimated 80 billion dollars in damages, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Katrina also turned out to be the deadliest U.S. hurricane since 1928, claiming at least 1,300 lives.The coastlines of those states were forever changed. NASA, using an Atlantic Global Research contract aircraft and the agency’s own advanced technology, made it possible to see how much and what type of damage that Katrina caused when it came ashore.The changes to the coasts were cataloged in detail using NASA's laser mapping system called EAARL (Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar) onboard an airplane. EAARL uses a laser to "see" and measure distance to a surface. EAARL can be used to get closer looks at things like coral reefs, sandy beaches, coastal vegetation, and trees.During the month of September, 2005, 250,000 pictures were taken over 5 days of flying over the coastlines.The EAARL Principal Investigator, Charles W. Wright, of NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility, Wallops, Va., placed the imagery online at Google Earth. "This is the first time that I can remember such an easy-to-use tool putting so much data at the fingertips of so many people with so little effort,” Wright said.Wright said that the people involved with the project were busy working to bring the lidar data of the New Orleans levees online for FEMA, and had not anticipated that they would be bringing the photography online.The U.S. Geological Survey’s Coastal and Marine Geology Program investigates the how much coastlines change due to hurricanes and other powerful storms. A big benefit to using this is that it will help people make decisions on where to rebuild.To see NASA imagery on Google Earth, first download Google Earth to your computer from the Web: For more information about EAARL, please visit on the Web: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
January 30, 2006 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/01/060130030222.htm | NASA Satellite Catches A Hurricane Transforming Itself | Hurricanes can completely re-structure themselves inside, and that presents forecasters with great uncertainty when predicting their effects on the general population. | Recently, scientists used data from NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite to analyze transformations that take place inside a hurricane. Stephen Guimond, a graduate research assistant at Florida State University, Tallahassee, Fla., lead a study that used TRMM data to view the height at which ice melts near the core of several tropical cyclones (the generic name for hurricanes or tropical storms), including Hurricane Ophelia in 2005.“The temperature structure of a tropical cyclone is directly related to a storm’s wind speed and rainfall, which indirectly affects the storm surge,” Guimond said. It is important to monitor a storm’s thermal structure because this information assists meteorologists in estimating the impact on threatened areas of high winds, flash flooding and large storm surge.Many tropical cyclones transform into what are called “extra-tropical storms” as they move northward out of the tropics and into the mid-latitudes. During this stage, the storm’s cloud structure and high winds spread out over a wide area. As a result, the potential for heavy rainfall and large storm surge increases far from the center, potentially affecting life and property of more areas in the hurricane's path.When Guimond and his colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, Calif. looked at the data from TRMM’s Precipitation Radar instrument, they could see the temperature changes inside a tropical cyclone. One piece of information that gave researchers a clue that a storm was becoming extra-tropical was that ice particles, which are found high up in the cold regions of thick clouds surrounding the eye of the storm, melted at lower levels. Usually, when a tropical cyclone is still in the “tropical stages,” ice particles melt higher in the clouds.By analyzing when and where ice particles are melting in tropical cyclones, researchers can better understand the various stages of an extra-tropical storm. This knowledge will help scientists re-create storms on computer forecast models, which can assist in the forecasting of future tropical cyclone transformations.There is another benefit to using the data from NASA’s TRMM radar. Guimond said that the thermal or heat data inferred from the satellite reveals information on storm intensity and also gives clues about how a storm formed. This will help hurricane forecasters and researchers gain a better sense of how the tropical cyclone will develop in the future.These findings were presented at the American Meteorological Society's 86th Annual Meeting in Atlanta. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,006 |
December 26, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051226100835.htm | Hurricanes, Runoff Tax Water Quality Management | A scientific study that involved analyzing phytoplankton in both North Carolina’s Neuse River Estuary/Pamlico Sound and Maryland and Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay offers a new lesson in light of recent increased hurricane activity along the East Coast, researchers say. | “Water quality management efforts aimed at protecting and preserving water quality and fisheries resources and habitat must be highly adaptive, taking both human nutrient enrichment and changes in freshwater input into consideration,” said Dr. Hans Paerl, Kenan professor of marine and environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences.“Estuaries are among the most productive and resource-rich waters on earth,” Paerl said. “The recent hurricanes we have experienced have taught us that the growth and composition of phytoplankton are controlled and affected by both the freshwater inputs and nutrients contained in floodwaters accompanying hurricanes and other large storms.”Phytoplankton are key indicators of an estuary’s ecological condition and health, he said. They are microscopic algae that form the base of the food chain, sustaining fisheries and overall fertility of large estuaries and other bodies of water, he said.“This appears to be the major water quality management challenge over the next several decades, since climatologists have predicted that estuarine and coastal systems will face at least another several decades of elevated hurricane activity in the Atlantic,” the scientist said.The new study, scheduled to appear in late January in the journal Limnology and Oceanography, involved analyzing changes in water quality in the two largest estuarine systems in the United States before and after recent hurricanes such as Dennis, Floyd and Isabel.Besides Paerl, authors of the report are postdoctoral researcher Lexia M. Valdes and graduate student Benjamin L. Peierls of the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ marine sciences institute and Drs. Jason E. Adolph, research scientist at the Maryland Center for Biotechnology, and Lawrence W. Harding Jr., professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science in Cambridge, Md.“Both the Neuse River Estuary/Pamlico Sound and Chesapeake Bay systems have experienced large post-World War II increases in nitrogen and phosphorus loading from agriculture, industry and other sources, which often negatively affect water quality and marine life,” Paerl said. “We’ve taken steps to reduce nutrients to alleviate such harmful symptoms as algal blooms and oxygen depletion, but this is a highly complex situation affected by draughts, hurricanes, floods, farming, development and other human activities.”In their study, the researchers uncovered similarities between the two largest U.S. estuaries, but also differences, he said.In water systems, variability in the length of time the water remained in approximately the same place strongly affected seasonal and longer-term patterns of the amount and kinds of phytoplankton present, Paerl said. During and following hurricane years, when more freshwater drained into the estuaries, conditions favored fast-growing diatoms in the Chesapeake Bay but not in the Neuse River and Pamlico Sound. That probably was because the bay is more open to the sea than the N.C. sound is.In the latter, spring growths of green algae (chlorophytes) and summer growth of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) became more common, the scientist said. Such storm-driven changes have important ramifications for the animal plankton, or zooplankton, feeding on algae and, ultimately, on fish and shellfish that rely on specific types of phytoplankton and zooplankton. How an estuary’s food web responds and its effects on fisheries are strongly dependent on the composition and abundance of phytoplankton sustaining the food web.“What happens to phytoplankton dynamics ultimately cascades up the food web,” Paerl said.He and colleagues currently are investigating the longer-term ramifications of storm-induced changes for fisheries.“Seasonally, droughts, floods and storm-related deep-water mixing overwhelmed attempts to control nutrients flowing off the land and into the sound and the bay,” Paerl said. “This underscores the difficulty in predicting seasonal and longer-term phytoplankton production, composition and water quality responses to just nutrient management alone. The interactive effects of large, episodic freshwater discharges accompanying increased hurricane activity need to be incorporated in water quality management, at least for the foreseeable future.”Along with UNC and Duke University colleagues, Paerl began monitoring surface water quality in the Neuse River and Pamlico Sound in 2000 with the help of state-run ferries. This program, FerryMon, has helped track and document long-term, ecosystem-scale efforts of large storms and droughts on the ecological condition and overall health of the estuarine system, which is the mid-Atlantic region’s largest fisheries nursery. That ongoing data collection and associated research has become a model for continuous ferry-based water assays throughout the nation.Help and support from the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Division of Ferries and Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) deserves much of the credit, he said.Since then, marine scientists in Florida, Massachusetts, Maine and New York and as far away as San Francisco Bay and Washington’s Puget Sound have begun designing, and in some cases already using, comparable systems. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
December 16, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051216092022.htm | Warmer 2005 For U.S., Near-record Warmth Globally -- Hurricanes, Floods, Snow And Wildfires All Notable | After a record-breaking hurricane season, blistering heat waves, lingering drought and a crippling Northeast blizzard, 2005 is ending as a warm year in the United States. It will come close to the all-time high global annual average temperature, based on preliminary data gathered by scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. | Warmer-than-average 2005 for U.S. NOAA scientists report that the 2005 annual average temperature for the contiguous United States (based on preliminary data) will likely be 1.0 degrees F (0.6 degrees C) above the 1895-2004 mean, which will make 2005 one of the 20 warmest years on record for the country. Mean temperatures through the end of November were warmer than average in all but three states. No state was cooler than average. A July heat wave pushed temperatures soaring beyond 100 degrees, and broke more than 200 daily records established in six western states. A new record of seven consecutive days at — or above — 125 degrees F was established at Death Valley, Calif. The heat wave spread across the country during late July, scorching the East and prompted record electricity usage in New England and New York.The 2004-2005 winter was a season of contrasts for the West, with excessive rainfall in the Southwest and severe drought in the Northwest. A parade of winter Pacific storms triggered severe flooding and devastating landslides in southern California and brought the second-wettest winter on record to the Southwest region. Record and near-record snowpack levels, which were widespread across the Southwest by early spring, eased drought in a region where it had persisted for five years. Meanwhile, drought conditions worsened in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies in early 2005 and snowpack in much of the region was at record low levels at the end of winter. However, above average precipitation in subsequent months led to improving drought conditions in much of the region.During spring, the drought focus shifted to the Midwest and southern Plains. Severe dryness persisted across parts of northern Illinois, with Chicago and Rockford recording their driest March-November on record. Drought disasters were declared in all or parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin. Drier-than-average conditions contributed to an active wildfire season that burned more than 8.5 million acres in 2005 — 4.5 million acres consumed in Alaska alone, based on preliminary data from the National Interagency Fire Center. This exceeds the old record set in 2000 for acreage burned in a wildfire season for the United States as a whole. At the end of November, 18 percent of the contiguous United States was in moderate-to-extreme drought based on a widely used measure of drought (the Palmer Drought Index) in contrast to six percent at the end of November last year.Record precipitation fell in the Northeast during the fall with three storm systems affecting the region in October. Nine states in the Northeast had their wettest October since 1895, and the October snowfall record on Mount Washington was shattered when 78.9 inches of snow fell during the month. Another notable snow storm in 2005 was the ‘Blizzard of 2005,’ which brought more than two feet of snow across much of southern New England in late January. This storm ranked as the seventh most extreme snow event in the Northeast as measured by a newly developed Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS) index and contributed to the snowiest January on record in Boston.The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season set several records. There were 26 named storms (storms with sustained winds of at least 39 miles per hour). In addition, there were an unprecedented 14 hurricanes, of which seven were major hurricanes (Category 3 or better on the Saffir-Simpson Scale). Three category 5 storms (sustained winds of 156 miles per hour or more) formed in the Atlantic Basin for the first time in a single season (Katrina, Rita and Wilma). Four major hurricanes and three tropical storms made landfall in the U.S., with an eighth storm (Ophelia) brushing the North Carolina coast. Tropical cyclone activity was near to below average in the Eastern Pacific and Western North Pacific basins through early December.The global annual temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces is expected to be very close to the record global temperature that was established in 1998 under the influence of an extremely strong El Niño episode. There has been no such El Niño event in 2005, but rather, unusual warmth across large parts of the globe throughout the year. NOAA is in the process of transitioning to an improved global temperature analysis system. The data analysis system used by NOAA for global temperature analyses over the past eight years indicates that 2005 would likely be the second-warmest year on record (1.06 degrees F; 0.59 degrees C above the 1880-2004 mean), marginally lower than 1998.The largest temperature anomalies were widespread throughout high latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere and included much of Russia, Scandinavia, Canada and Alaska. During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 1.1 degrees F/Century (0.6 degrees C/Century), but the rate of temperature increase has been three times larger since 1976, with some of the largest temperature increases occurring in the high latitudes.Reflecting the global warmth in 2005, a new record was established in September for the lowest Arctic sea ice extent since satellite monitoring began in the late 1970s, 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 approximately eight percent per decade since 1979.The year began with the continuation of a weak El Niño episode that developed in late 2004, but sea surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific decreased early in the year and the episode ended by late February. Few impacts from the weak El Niño occurred worldwide, and neutral conditions persisted for the remainder of the year.Significant weather and climate events for the globe included: severe drought in parts of southern Africa and the Greater Horn of Africa, extreme monsoon-related rainfall in western India including a 24-hour rainfall total of 37.1 inches in Mumbai, the worst drought in decades in the Amazon River basin, severe drought in large parts of western Europe, and a record warm year in Australia.NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners and nearly 60 countries to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
December 15, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051215085213.htm | Post-Katrina: Lead In Disturbed Soil May Pose Heightened Health Risk | Unsafe levels of lead have been found in soil and sediments left behind in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and could pose a heightened health threat to returning residents, particularly children, according to a new study published in the American Chemical Society's journal | High concentrations of lead in the city's soil have previously been reported by others, but lead generally remains embedded in the soil and does not easily come in contact with people unless disturbed, says study leader Steven M. Presley, Ph.D., an environmental toxicologist at Texas Tech in Lubbock. He says that severe flooding may have loosened large amounts of embedded lead and caused it to be deposited on soil surfaces, where exposure to lead particles is more likely, either through skin contact or the inhalation of aerosolized particles. Lead exposure is a particular health concern among children because it can impair the nervous system and cause developmental problems. Although lead is the biggest health concern, the scientists also found concentrations of aldrin (an insecticide), arsenic, and seven semivolatile organic compounds that exceeded EPA Region VI safe levels and are on EPA's list of known or suspected human carcinogens. In all, the researchers analyzed the sediment and soil samples for 26 metals and more than 90 semi-volatile compounds. In addition to sediment and soil samples, the researchers also tested water and animal tissues following the flood. Other contaminants found among samples include high levels of iron, several banned pesticides and pathogenic bacteria, but the researchers say that concentrations of most of these contaminants were unlikely to pose an immediate human health threat. The peer-reviewed study, which represents one of the most detailed environmental sampling efforts to date following the flooding caused by Katrina, will appear in the Jan. 15 issue of "The purpose of this study is to gather more extensive samples and establish baseline data upon which to evaluate the long-term environmental impact of the storm," says Presley. "It may take years before we really know the full extent of the human health risks and wildlife impact from the Katrina contaminants, but this is an important step." The researcher cautions that this study alone won't answer the much debated question of whether it is safe to return to the area. Nonetheless, says Presley, people should be made aware of the contaminants that are present and take appropriate cleanup measures to minimize the potential health risks. For the current study, the research team obtained sediment, soil, water and animal tissue samples over a three-day period (Sept. 16-18) from across a broad cross-section of the city 18 days after the hurricane struck and after most of the water had been pumped from the city. The sampling included 14 different sites in the New Orleans area and focused mainly on the sediment and soil. Floodwater samples taken at some sites showed extremely high levels of bacteria, particularly Aeromonas hydrophila, a little known human pathogen that can cause diarrhea and wound infections. This is the first time that Aeromonas has been detected in the Katrina floodwaters, Presley says. Animal tissues sampled, including dead snakes and an alligator, also contained multiple metals and pesticides, but these levels were generally within an expected range and not likely to be caused by the hurricane, the researchers say. Of the 47 mosquito specimens collected in the study area, all tested negative for West Nile Virus and St. Louis Encephalitis, says Presley. But he cautions that virus-transmitting mosquito populations might increase in the spring and summer. The researchers are planning to expand their sampling study to include additional cross-sections of the city, Presley says. The Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University and the Patent & Trademark Institute of America provided funding for this study. The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than 158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. It publishes numerous scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
October 31, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051031123345.htm | Microfossils Show Promise In Prospecting Climate History | In 2004 and now in 2005, the hurricane seasons have been horrifyingly intense -- so how bad is the long-range forecast? Based on a century of data, meteorologists currently believe that a 30-year lull in hurricane activity is over and we are at the beginning of a new multi-decade period of larger and more frequent storms. However, there is other data that suggests we may also be coming to the end of a thousand year period of greatly diminished hurricane activity, making the outlook even worse. | Or not -- Finding the answer may depend on the research of University of North Carolina at Charlotte environmental micropaleontologist Scott Hippensteel -- and on microscopic shells, barrier marshes and fiddler crabs. The answer may be critical not just in weather forecasting, but in adjusting insurance rates, in preparing for future disasters and in guiding future environmental policy. Since climate science cannot yet accurately predict the future, the best way we can find these answers is to look at history (or "prehistory"). But how much history is there for us to look at? "Is the frequency of big storms going on now natural and should we expect this in the future?" Hippensteel said. "How much of this is anthropogenic? In trying to answer questions like these, what data do we have to compare our recent records to? "We have 400 years of historical records, and about a century of real weather records. If you look at the coastal area that I'm doing research on, we've had one major hurricane -- a category 4 or 5 -- in the last 100 years. How do you adjust insurance rates based on one storm in 100 years? What we need is a much more extensive record -- maybe about 5,000 years worth of data." There is, Hippensteel points out, a geological feature that records the past occurrence of major storms along the coasts -- the sediments left behind by massive tidal surges that wash, tsunami-like over the land. The trick, of course, is to find places where surge-caused layers of coastal sedimentation are consistently preserved and then to identify distinguishing details in the hurricane-caused layers. One place where such preservation may have occurred are the back-barrier marshes off South Carolina's barrier islands -- low islands that protect these lowlands from regular erosion from the sea, yet also allow the ocean and its sand in when major storm events occur. In intervening times, the settling of sediment in the marsh lays down other protective layers. In order to "read" the layers of marsh sediment and to distinguish between those laid down by normal weather cycles, Hippensteel uses foraminifera deposits -- a paleontological tool that in the past has been heavily used by geologists involved in oil exploration. Foraminifera are single-celled organisms that produce easily identifiable shells, which are preserved in vast quantities in ocean and shore sediments. These organisms are very diverse and the populations of species are highly specific to the time and place in which they lived, leaving a clear marker in undisturbed sediments of the time period and locale of deposition. Hippensteel reasoned that he could use the geological marking information offered by foraminifera deposits and apply it to a unique characteristic of powerful hurricanes -- their ability to dredge up off-shore ocean deposits. In a study funded by the National Science Foundation, Hippensteel and University of Delaware geologist Ronald E. Martin analyzed sediment cores taken from a South Carolina back-barrier marsh and indeed found numerous layers that contained foraminifera that originated in off-shore water (results published in Topics in Geobiology, Vol. 15, 2000). "At Folly Island, South Carolina we found storm deposits that were interbedded with regular marsh muds. We knew that the deposits were left by hurricanes because they contain forams that only live in the off-shore environments," Hippensteel noted. "There is only one way that you could get layers of sand enriched with these forams, and that is a big hurricane dredges them up and throws them in the back barrier marshes. We used fossils as a tracer to prove the mode of deposition." The foraminifera that Hippensteel found in the deposits include modern off-shore species and also species that were know to live off-shore in the Oligo-Miocene period (25-30 million years ago) and are known to be present in sediment deposits on the Carolinas continental shelf. Hippensteel found the highest percentage of off-shore species in the thickest sandy layers of suspected storm sediment, which is consistent with the supposition that the biggest storms would both carry the most sand and also churn more of it from deeper water. When the big storm layers were thus isolated in the Folly Island sediment cores, the results had disturbing implications. "The record indicates that big storms have been less frequent in the last 1000 years than in the previous 2000 years before that," Hippensteel said. Recent layers contained far fewer layers of sand and very few layers containing significant numbers of off-shore foraminifera, compared with numerous such layers in the previous millennia. Hippensteel cautions, however, that other environmental effects could be coloring this data. One big possible factor could be sediment-disturbing fiddler crabs, that might have only recently entered the area because of rising sea levels. "Fiddler crabs mix the surface layers of sediment," he said. "If the sea level has been rising through time, we know that it is probable that our marshes have been getting muddier and muddier with more and more crabs. So if you think about it through time, the mixing is becoming more and more intense. The rising water may be making the recent record less certain." The results shown in the foraminifera storm record are thus tantalizing but still uncertain, Hippensteel notes, and more work need to be done to verify the accuracy of the more recent layers. "Our records seem to show that we have been in a thousand year period of relative calm, but that result doesn't consider the possible destruction of the storm layers," he said. "Hurricanes may have been far more frequent before a thousand years ago ... but we really don't know yet. We need more data." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
October 20, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051020085324.htm | Hopkins Emergency Physician Warns Of Post-hurricane Disease And Illness | A Johns Hopkins emergency physician who spent the past five weeks working on public health issues in the Gulf Coast region following hurricane Katrina warns that the disaster's potential for wreaking havoc and damage to people's health may continue for months after the hurricane has passed. | In an editorial published this month in The New England Journal of Medicine, Thomas Kirsch, M.D., M.P.H., an assistant professor and director of emergency operations at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, reports that large numbers of displaced people are at increased risk of infectious diseases, such as chicken pox, gastroenteritis, scabies and influenza, which can spread quickly in disaster shelters. In these confined quarters, Kirsch says, crowded and poor sanitary conditions, including limited access to clean water and insufficient numbers of toilets, help spread disease from person to person. However, Kirsch notes that people with chronic health conditions face the biggest threats by far, lacking immediate access to their routine medical services for hemodialysis, or access to medications for diabetes, heart disease, HIV or tuberculosis. Kirsch, who went to the Gulf Coast area to conduct medical needs assessments for the American Red Cross, says constant monitoring and surveillance are required to contain disease outbreaks. More importantly, he adds, improving the current public health care system so that it is strong enough to prevent disease through mass vaccinations and large enough to survive a natural disaster is the best means of guarding population health. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
October 12, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051012082827.htm | Katrina Floodwaters Not As Toxic To Humans As Previously Thought, Study Says | The floodwaters that inundated New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina were similar in content to the city’s normal storm water and were not as toxic as previously thought, according to a study by researchers at Louisiana State University. Their study, the first peer-reviewed scientific assessment of the water quality of the Katrina floodwaters, is good news for those who’ve been exposed directly to the floodwaters, the scientists say.But the LSU researchers caution that the same floodwaters that were pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain contain high levels of some toxic metals, especially copper and zinc, and could pose a long-term danger to the area’s aquatic life, which are more sensitive to the metals than humans. Their findings will appear in the Oct. 11 online issue of the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science & Technology."What we had in New Orleans was basically a year’s worth of storm water flowing through the city in only a few days," says study leader John Pardue, Ph.D., an environmental engineer and director of the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute at LSU in Baton Rouge. "We still don’t think the floodwaters were safe, but it could have been a lot worse. It was not the chemical catastrophe some had expected."Some experts had predicted that the floodwaters from Katrina could potentially destroy chemical plants and refineries in the area, releasing a deadly brew containing toxic levels of benzene, hydrochloric acid and chlorine. Instead, high levels of bacteria and viruses were the biggest human threat, not exposure to chemicals, Pardue and his associates say.The researchers obtained 38 floodwater samples from widespread sections of New Orleans, primarily in the area of the city known as the "East Bank," where the main human contact with the floodwaters occurred. The samples, which included both surface waters and bottom samples, were taken within five to nine days after flooding occurred. Additional samples were also obtained from the 17th Street drainage canal, after pumping of the floodwater began, to evaluate the flood’s impact on Lake Pontchartrain, the receiving body for the pumped floodwaters.The researchers found high levels of bacteria, most likely from fecal contamination resulting from sewage. Levels were within the range of typical storm-water runoff in the city, the scientists say. They also detected high levels of lead, arsenic and chromium and noted that levels of these toxic metals were also similar to those typically found in the area’s stormwater. In general, these particular findings were similar to those obtained by the Environmental Protection Agency in their initial assessment of the floodwaters, the researchers say.Gasoline was also a significant component of the floodwaters, as measured by elevated levels of three of its components: benzene, toluene and ethylbenzene. These compounds were somewhat elevated in comparison to typical stormwater runoff, the researchers say. The chemicals most likely came from cars and storage tanks submerged in the floodwaters, they add.Compounds found in common household chemicals were also detected in the floodwaters, Pardue says. The waters contained chemical compounds from aerosol paints, insecticides, caulking compounds, rubber adhesives and other common substances, they say, but at levels that typically do not create concern for human health.If the floodwaters had occurred in another location near more industrial sites in the city and if the wind damage or water surge had been more severe, then the resultant floodwaters could have been a more serious toxic threat, Pardue says. "Instead, the city filled slowly, like a bathtub, and the water velocities and forces on the buildings, including chemical storage facilities, were relatively benign," he says. The large volume of floodwater also diluted the potency of many of the chemicals, he adds.While serious toxicity to human life was largely avoided, the floodwater may pose a chemical risk to aquatic life in the area, Pardue says. He believes that low oxygen levels in the water that is being pumped back into Lake Pontchartrain could result in fish kills. He also says that heavy metals being discharged into the lake, particularly copper and zinc, can be toxic to fish and other marine life and may bioaccumulate and contaminate seafood collected from the region. More studies are needed to assess the long-term impact of the flood on aquatic life, Pardue says.Funding for this study was provided by the Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute and the LSU Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes.The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization, chartered by the U.S. Congress, with a multidisciplinary membership of more than 158,000 chemists and chemical engineers. It publishes numerous scientific journals and databases, convenes major research conferences and provides educational, science policy and career programs in chemistry. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
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September 29, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050929081727.htm | UNC Computer, Marine Scientists Collaborate To Predict Flow Of Toxic Waters From Katrina | CHAPEL HILL -- In the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina, scientists and research centers from across the country came together to generate information on the contaminated floodwaters and offer it to hazardous materials experts and public health officials.In a matter of hours, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Marine Sciences Program and Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), together with the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), played a key role in that effort by providing rapid-response computing and modeling capability.Floodwaters containing organic and chemical pollutants such as sewage and oil still cover swaths of Mississippi and Louisiana. To aid cleanup, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Coast Survey Development Laboratory (CSDL), along with UNC faculty, have been developing forecasts that will predict the circulation of those foul waters.A group of researchers, including Drs. Richard Luettich and Brian Blanton, marine scientists in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, has developed a three-dimensional computer program that can be used to model water levels and flow. This program, "ADCIRC," is what experts call a hydrodynamic code. Previously, the code was used largely for after-the-fact analyses of coastal circulation, but researchers now believe it can help produce answers during a crisis.Blanton and Luettich, assistant research professor and professor of marine sciences, respectively, knew that to simulate the required 60 days of water velocity and water surface elevation they would need more computational power then they had at the university. They asked UNC’s Dr. Daniel A. Reed for help -- based on their NOAA--funded collaboration with RENCI -- to establish a computational system with Web access for rapid-response forecasting to severe weather.Reed is Chancellor’s Eminent professor and vice chancellor for information technology at UNC. North Carolina’s 2005-06 budget includes $5.9 million in new funding for RENCI, a collaboration of UNC, Duke and NC State that is based on the Chapel Hill campus and run by Reed. RENCI is slated to receive $11.8 million in recurring funding thereafter."If we had a month to do these runs, we could do them on our desktop computers or on a small cluster, but to do it literally overnight requires some horsepower," Blanton said.Reed, former director of NCSA, connected Blanton and Leuttich with NCSA, the National Science Foundation-supported supercomputing center located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Using NCSA’s Xeon system, a state-of-the-art parallel computer called Tungsten, the researchers were able to complete the required computational runs in about 15 hours, from midnight on Sept. 11 to mid-afternoon on Sept. 12."This is a prelude to the capabilities RENCI and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will provide to North Carolina, as we deploy our own large-scale computing infrastructure and continue to build disaster-response collaborations with North Carolina experts," Reed said. "With state support, we are now building world-class capability for interdisciplinary research, technology transfer, economic development and engagement across North Carolina."Researchers at CSDL, with assistance from Luettich and Blanton, are working to integrate information provided by the computational calculations with NOAA’s North American Mesoscale Model, the primary weather forecasting model used by the National Weather Service, to simulate wind speed, direction and other weather factors. Their goal is to provide daily forecasts of coastal circulation and pollutant concentrations in the Katrina-affected region, information that will be vital as cleanup efforts and recovery continue.The two also have extended their work with RENCI, Reed and colleagues to analyze various aspects of last weekend’s Hurricane Rita and its effects in Texas and Louisiana."We are trying to be prepared and generate reliable information that the hazardous materials experts will need to have," said CSDL scientist Jesse Feynen. "We're doing that, and we're doing it quickly." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
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September 23, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050923153256.htm | Envisat And ERS-2 Reveal Hidden Side Of Hurricane Rita | As Hurricane Rita entered the Gulf of Mexico, ESA's Envisatsatellite's radar was able to pierce through swirling clouds todirectly show how the storm churns the sea surface. This image has thenbeen used to derive Rita's wind field speeds. | Notably large waves are seen aroundthe eye of Hurricane Rita in the radar image. ASAR measures thebackscatter, which is a measure of the roughness of the ocean surface.On a basic level, bright areas of the radar image mean higherbackscatter due to surface roughness. This roughness is stronglyinfluenced by the local wind field so that the radar backscatter can beused in turn to measure the wind.So the Center for SoutheasternTropical Advanced Remote Sensing at the University of Miami used thisASAR image to calculate the speed of Hurricane Rita's surface windfields – showing maximum wind speeds in excess of 200 kilometres perhour."The most detailed information about hurricane dynamics andcharacteristics are obtained from dedicated flights by hurricane hunteraircraft," explains Hans Graber of CSTARS. "However these flightmissions cannot always take place. Satellite remote sensing provides acritical alternative approach."It is critical for weatherforecasters to obtain reliable characterization of the eye walldimension and the radii of gale- tropical storm- and hurricane-forcewinds in order to provide skilful forecasts and warning. Satellitebased observations will facilitate better understanding of hurricaneevolution and intensification."Radar images penetrate throughclouds and can easily detect the eye replacement cycle of hurricaneswhich are precursors to further intensification."Rita was amaximum Category Five on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale when theASAR image was acquired. As it continues west through the Gulf ofMexico it has weakened to a still-dangerous Category Four. Rita isexpected to make landfall on the Gulf coast during the morning of 24September.Thisinstrument works by firing a trio of high-frequency radar beams down tothe ocean, then analysing the pattern of backscatter reflected upagain. Wind-driven ripples on the ocean surface modify the radarbackscatter, and as the energy in these ripples increases with windvelocity, so backscatter increases as well. Scatterometer resultsenable measurements of not only wind speed but also direction acrossthe water surface.What makes ERS-2's scatterometer especiallyvaluable is that its C-band radar frequency is almost unaffected byheavy rain, so it can return useful wind data even from the heart ofthe fiercest storms – and is the sole scatterometer of this typecurrently in orbit.The ERS-2 Scatterometer results for HurricaneRita seen here have been processed by the Royal NetherlandsMeteorological Institute (KNMI). They are also routinely assimilated bythe European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) intotheir advanced numerical models used for meteorological predictions."Scatterometerdata from the ERS-2 platform provide high-quality wind information inthe vicinity of tropical cyclones," states Hans Hersbach of ECMWF. "Fora Hurricane like Rita, the combination of such observations with[in-situ] dropsonde data enables the analysis system at ECMWF toproduce an improved forecast."Near-real time radar altimetry is a powerful toolfor monitoring a hurricane's progress and predicting its potentialimpact. This is because anomalies in SSH can be used to identify warmerocean features such as warm core rings, eddies and currents.TheUS National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is utilisingEnvisat RA-2 results along with those from other space-borne altimetersto chart such regions of 'tropical cyclone heat potential' (TCHP) andimprove the accuracy of Hurricane Rita forecasting.Envisatcarries both optical and radar instruments, enabling researchers toobserve high-atmosphere cloud structure and pressure in the visible andinfrared spectrum, while at the same time using radar backscatter tomeasure the roughness of the sea surface and so derive the wind fieldsjust above it.Those winds converging on the low-pressure eye ofthe storm are what ultimately determine the spiralling cloud patternsthat are characteristic of a hurricane.Additional Envisatinstruments can be used to take the temperature of the warm oceanwaters that power storms during the annual Atlantic hurricane season,along with sea height anomalies related to warm upper ocean features. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 22, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050922013931.htm | Rita and Beyond: Research Model Advances Hurricane Intensity Prediction | BOULDER -- An advanced research weather model run by the NationalCenter for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is following Hurricane Rita togive scientists a taste of how well forecast models of the future maypredict hurricane track, intensity, and important rain and windfeatures. Tap into the model's daily storm projection at | With its high-resolution grid of data points just four kilometers(about 2.5 miles) apart, the model can project the location offine-scale rain bands and eyewall structures 48 hours into the future.It's these storm features that determine where the greatestdamage from both rain and wind might occur, says NCAR weather expertChris Davis. Current operational forecast models use a coarserresolution and must approximate the cloud processes affecting intensityand precipitation.Known as ARW, the computer model is NCAR's research version ofthe Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), a joint effort byuniversity and government scientists."ARW intensity predictions are very encouraging," says Davis."Five years ago, accurate intensity predictions weren't even possible."The model captured in detail the collapse of HurricaneKatrina's eyewall at landfall and the shift of precipitation to thenorth side of the storm. Had the eyewall's structure remained coherent,the winds would have been far more devastating. However, an eyewallalways weakens at landfall, says Davis.Teams supporting the Department of Energy and Department ofHomeland Security are using real-time ARW data in their damage models.The researchers are testing how computer simulations of a particularhurricane's most destructive features might improve damage modelprojections and lead to better warnings of floods, power outages, androad blockage. This year's test cases have included hurricanes Katrina,Ophelia, and now Rita.Meanwhile, a hurricane experiment in Florida is investigatingthe interactions between Hurricane Rita's rain bands and its eyewall.NCAR's Wen-Chau Lee is flying through the storm aboard a Naval ResearchLaboratory P-3 aircraft to gather radar data from inside the bands. Theobservations from the Hurricane Rainband and Intensity ChangeExperiment (RAINEX) will help scientists better understand the impactof the rain bands on the storm's maximum winds. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 22, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050922013455.htm | NOAA To Study Effects Of Hurricane Katrina; Biologists Will Look At Marine Resources And Contaminants | Sept. 13, 2005 — The NOAA Research vessel the Nancy Foster this week is working off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama to study the effects of Hurricane Katrina on marine resources and the ecosystem. During the cruise, biologists will take water samples and look at sediments in the Mississippi river. They will test fish and shrimp for evidence of toxic contamination and pathogens that might affect human health. | "I've asked our fisheries scientists to work with other NOAA scientists on a major research cruise in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina," said Bill Hogarth, NOAA Fisheries Service director. "NOAA is implementing a suite of studies and tests to determine the effects of the hurricane on fish, marine mammals, sea turtles and the ecosystem they depend on for survival."U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez late last week announced a formal determination of a fishery failure in the Gulf of Mexico due to the devastation following Hurricane Katrina. The affected area includes the Florida Keys and from Pensacola, Fla., to the Texas border.The action was made through provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which makes federal relief funds available to assess the impacts, restore the fisheries, prevent future failure, and assist fishing communities' recovery efforts after a natural disaster, and the Inter-jurisdictional Act, which makes funds available for direct assistance to fishermen to alleviate harm resulting from a natural disaster.NOAA is working with the states to assess damage to the 15 major fishing ports and the 177 seafood-processing facilities in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana."Our goals, and those of the fisheries directors of the affected states, are to determine the effects of the hurricane on the area's fish and shellfish, as well as the long-term impacts these might have on the commercial fishing industry," Hogarth added. "We also will be taking a look at the effects of Hurricane Katrina on inventories of fish processors, dealers and individual fishing related businesses."In addition to the research cruise on the Nancy Foster, NOAA has chartered the shrimp-fishing vessel, the Patricia Jean, from Alabama to assist with sampling for evidence of toxic contamination and pathogens. NOAA biologists also are conducting overflights to look for marine mammals and sea turtles, and to assess the damage to wetlands.Over the weekend NOAA conducted aerial flights and located eight dolphins, including two moms and their young that were swept out to sea during the hurricane from a pool at a local aquarium in Gulfport, Miss. Biologists are working to feed the dolphins until they can safely rescue them and place them in rehabilitation.The NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to protecting and preserving the nation's living marine resources and their habitats through scientific research, management and enforcement. NOAA Fisheries Service provides effective stewardship of these resources for the benefit of the nation, supporting coastal communities that depend upon them, and helping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers and recreational opportunities for the American public.NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and providing environmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 22, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050922013127.htm | NOAA Fisheries Service Rescues The Last Four Trained Dolphins Washed Into Mississippi Sound After Hurricane Katrina | Sept. 20, 2005 — The NOAA Fisheries Service and the Marine LifeAquarium of Gulfport, Miss., working with a number of other partners,rescued the last four of the eight trained bottlenose dolphins thatwere swept out of an aquarium tank torn apart by the storm surge ofHurricane Katrina on August 29. Normally held in captivity, thedolphins don't have the necessary skills to survive on their own. Theyhave survived various injuries and predators and have stayed togethersince the storm. | On September 10, the team of NOAA marine mammal biologists andaquarium trainers first located the eight dolphins and began providingfood and medicine to the animals. Over the course of a week, the teamwas able to capture four of the weakest dolphins, and has been feedingthe others several times a day as they planned and performed themulti-stage rescue. The remaining four dolphins vanished over theweekend. Through reports from the Coast Guard, NOAA Fisheries Servicescientists found the dolphins Tuesday morning while doing surveys in aNOAA boat near Biloxi, Miss."Among all the destruction and loss from Hurricane Katrina, thisdolphin rescue is a bit of good news. It is a wonderful example ofpartners coming together to bring the dolphins to safety," said BillHogarth, NOAA Fisheries Service director. "This rescue effort is asuccess story for all the partners involved and for the public who havetaken such an interest in the plight of these dolphins."Due to the unclean condition of the water and the difficulty of therescue, biologists captured the dolphins in stages. The animals weretransported to nearby salt-water pools, provided by the U.S. Navy,where they will receive medical care and be evaluated for diseases,including contagious diseases. NOAA Fisheries Service lead veterinarianDr. Teri Rowles said the dolphins will be kept in quarantine whilescientists access their overall health."We're pleased we were able to rescue all eight dolphins," saidRowles. "They are now in a situation where full diagnostics can be doneand medical care can be provided. The rescue team remains cautiouslyoptimistic that they will recover from this ordeal."The rescue effort involved partners including the U.S. Navy, the AirNational Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Department ofAgriculture, the Gulf World Marine Park, the Florida Fish and WildlifeConservation Commission and the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute.Days before the hurricane, workers at the Marine Life Aquarium wereable to move another group of dolphins into hotel swimming pools. Theseanimals survived the storm and were moved to the Gulfarium in FortWalton Beach, Fla. The eight dolphins that were rescued from the wildhad been left in a large Marine Life Aquarium pool that had survivedHurricane Camille in 1969.The NOAA Fisheries Service is dedicated to protecting and preservingthe nation's living marine resources and their habitat throughscientific research, management and enforcement. NOAA Fisheries Serviceprovides effective stewardship of these resources for the benefit ofthe nation, supporting coastal communities that depend upon them, andhelping to provide safe and healthy seafood to consumers andrecreational opportunities for the American public.NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated toenhancing economic security and national safety through the predictionand research of weather and climate-related events and providingenvironmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 19, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050919083059.htm | Ocean Instrument Program Led By Scripps Set To Achieve World Coverage | An ambitious idea spawned more than 20 years ago to develop a new way to watch the world change has come to fruition. | TheGlobal Drifter Program (GDP), largely led by Scripps Institution ofOceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and ScrippsDistinguished Professor Peter Niiler, will meet its lofty goal ofblanketing the globe on Sept. 18 when the program's 1,250th instrumentis dropped in the ocean off Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.GDPbuoys, also called drifters, are designed to travel the oceans takingmeasurements of sea surface temperatures, ocean currents, air pressureand other parameters. By linking and disseminating the informationrelayed from each of these instruments in a global network, scientistsand others have been able to produce new details about the world'socean processes, key information for weather and climate forecastingand important calibrations of satellite readings."When the GDPdrifter data is combined with satellite measurements we can now obtaina complete, accurate map of the sea surface temperature of the worldtwice per week," said Niiler, a scientist in the Physical OceanographyResearch Division at Scripps. "These 'weather maps' of the oceansurface will tell us how Earth is warming up and where it is warmingmore than in other places. These combined data also give us an accuratepicture of the changing currents and patterns of ocean circulation."TheGDP is a component of the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration's (NOAA) Global Ocean Observing System and GlobalClimate Observing System.According to Niiler, more than 250research papers have been published with new findings derived throughGDP circulation measurements. Many more have used its sea temperaturemeasurements. Topics have ranged from El Niños and La Niñas to globalclimate change.Niiler believes the impact of GDP informationwill continue to grow because of the distinct characteristics displayedin current systems off coasts around the world. Analyzing the strongestnorth-south current system in the world, the Agulhas Current off theeastern coast of South Africa, tells a much different story thanstudying the California Current, the north-south circulation of thenorth Pacific Ocean that travels just off California's waters."TheGDP observations are of great interest to people all over the world,"said Niiler. "If you want to know what's happening in your backyard, oryou want to know what's happening on a global basis, these data willassist you."When Niiler called a meeting of scientists inBoulder, Colo., in 1982, surface temperature readings and circulationpatterns were a mystery in large regions of the world, especially inthe Southern Ocean."A large part of the world simply could notbe sampled," said Niiler, "because most of the world's ships don't gothere. We needed a new way."Niiler and his colleagues resolvedthat such gaps could only be filled with a completely new system ofobserving the entire Earth's oceans. They also decided that thismission could only be accomplished with the development of new oceaninstruments.With long-term support from Scripps, Niiler and hiscolleagues began to work with engineers in designing and developinglow-cost, rugged drifters that measure currents with high accuracy andrelay their sensor information through existing satellitecommunications systems. Scripps and Niiler eventually led the design,manufacture, deployment and research analysis of the program. YetScripps scientists could not do it all alone, Niiler stresses, andnational and international partners played a significant role in theprogram's development through organizations that include NOAA'sAtlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, variousmeteorological groups, oceanographers from 20 countries and nearly allUnited States government research funding agencies. In the future, NOAAwill provide about 80 percent of the drifters to maintain the array.Althoughthe GDP has met its goal of populating the global ocean with 1,250drifters, the array of instruments has become so valuable to scienceand other applications that the network will continue to grow.Challenges associated with drifter deployments in areas rarely visitedby ships will be addressed by increasing future deployments by air.Drifters are now deployed by the United States Air Force's "HurricaneHunter Squadron" in front of hurricanes to obtain data on hurricanestrength and size.New ways of using the drifters as platformsfor environmental sensors also are being explored, includingmeasurements for rain, biochemical concentrations and surfaceconductivity. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 17, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050917084951.htm | Believe It Or Not, More Rain Would Benefit New Orleans, Ecologist Says | CHAPEL HILL – In the wake of Hurricane Katrina -- probably the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history -- a leading ecologist says that one of the best things that could happen to New Orleans and the rest of southern Louisiana and Mississippi would be more rain."People might think I’m kidding, but I’m not," said Dr. Seth R. Reice, associate professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s College of Arts and Sciences."The floodwater still covering much of New Orleans and elsewhere is full of everything people store under their sinks in their kitchens and bathrooms. It’s also full of coliform bacteria from backed-up human waste, plus gasoline, oil and countless other pollutants. It is a really toxic stew."An intense rain would dilute the water and could make it possible to varying degrees for organisms -- both large and small -- to cope with it better, Reice said.Dilution is much needed, he said. Standing water in New Orleans streets was found late last week to carry 10 times the maximum safe level of fecal coliform bacteria to say nothing about the non-organic pollutants, the scientist said. He likened those streets to open sewers.Reice is the author of The Silver Lining, subtitled "The Benefits of Natural Disasters." Published in 2001 by Princeton University Press, the book received much attention when it first appeared and later following the tsunamis in 2004 in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.It details how, usually, hurricanes and lesser storms, volcanoes, earthquakes, floods and other apparently catastrophic events renew life and boost diversity in ecosystems throughout the world.But authorities in New Orleans are making a large mistake by pumping the floodwater into Lake Ponchartrain, Reice said."They have no business doing this," the biologist said. "It is going to cause tremendous pollution and probably big fish kills. Instead, they should have pumped it as far out to sea as they could or at least into the Mississippi where the current would dilute it. Or they could have treated it in wastewater treatment plants. They over-reacted to the need to drain the streets and gave no thought to the severe environmental damage to the lake and its fishes."The second largest problem -- one that most Americans didn’t realize until the hurricane -- is that New Orleans has been sinking for decades, Reice said. That’s because it was built on Mississippi Delta silt, which built up over millions of years by the sediments carried by the Mississippi River and deposited during floods. By isolating New Orleans from flooding, engineers robbed the delta of its sedimentary deposits."This natural disaster was partially the result of engineering designed to prevent flooding," he said. "Natural flooding would have been less severe and would have allowed for a buildup of new sediments."Instead, what happened was that as the skyline rose, buildings got heavier and heavier and pushed the city downward into the soft earth, Reice said. The same is true for the entire Mississippi Delta region of southern Louisiana."What we are looking at now is a catastrophe for the shellfish industry since Louisiana oysters have become contaminated," he said. "Would you want to eat fish from Lake Ponchartrain or shellfish from the Gulf anytime soon? I certainly wouldn’t."The scale of this thing is simply enormous and, of course, we had essentially no emergency preparedness for it," Reice said. "Perhaps one of the few positive things that will come out of the Hurricane Katrina disaster is that voters and politicians will start paying more attention to the environment."The biologist said the American people share part of the blame for what happened in Louisiana and Mississippi since they keep buying gas-guzzling automobiles that waste gasoline and contribute heavily to global warming. He considers SUVs, for example, a "crime against nature.""American automakers have the capacity to build fuel-efficient cars, but they just won’t do it because the federal government puts no pressure on them," Reice said. "In Europe, people have been paying $5 a gallon of gasoline for years. Do I resent $3 a gallon for gas here? Not a bit. I say put a tax on it to get the price up to $4 a gallon because we have got to stop wasting fuel."Among the UNC scientist’s recommendations are to get researchers out to Lake Ponchartrain to assess insults to that vast body of water, which could take years to recover completely. He recommends developing an ecological remediation plan for it and for the coastal zone as well. He also said he believes FEMA should be taken out of Homeland Security and led by an expert with cabinet-level authority."We need an almost radical reconsideration of nature and a resolve not to muck things up as we have in the past," he said. "Just about every time we get in the way of nature, we create more problems for nature and for ourselves."Among topics Reice tackles in his book are how paving over the landscape for malls, subdivisions and highways leads to more frequent and severe flooding of urban streams.Niles Eldredge of the American Museum of Natural History called The Silver Lining highly accessible and said "the chapters on fire and floods are brilliant." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
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September 16, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050916072459.htm | Hurricanes Are Getting Stronger, Study Says | BOULDER -- The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide hasnearly doubled over the past 35 years, even though the total number ofhurricanes has dropped since the 1990s, according to a study byresearchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the NationalCenter for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The shift occurred as globalsea surface temperatures have increased over the same period. Theresearch appears in the September 16 issue of Science. | Peter Webster, professor at Georgia Tech's School of Earth andAtmospheric Sciences, along with NCAR's Greg Holland and Georgia Tech'sJudith Curry and Hai-Ru Chang, studied the number, duration, andintensity of hurricanes (also known as typhoons or tropical cyclones)that have occurred worldwide from 1970 to 2004. The study was supportedby the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's primary sponsor."What we found was rather astonishing," said Webster. "In the 1970s,there was an average of about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per yearglobally. Since 1990, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes hasalmost doubled, averaging 18 per year globally."Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds from 131 to 155 miles perhour; Category 5 systems, such as Hurricane Katrina at its peak overthe Gulf of Mexico, feature winds of 156 mph or more."This long period of sustained intensity change provides anexcellent basis for further work to understand and predict thepotential responses of tropical cyclones to changing environmentalconditions", said NCAR's Holland."Category 4 and 5 storms are also making up a larger share of thetotal number of hurricanes," said Curry, chair of the School of Earthand Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech and coauthor of the study."Category 4 and 5 hurricanes made up about 20% of all hurricanes in the1970s, but over the last decade they accounted for about 35% of thesestorms."The largest increases in the number of intense hurricanes occurredin the North Pacific, Southwest Pacific, and the North and South IndianOceans, with slightly smaller increases in the North Atlantic Ocean.All this is happening as sea surface temperatures have risen acrossthe globe between one-half and one degree Fahrenheit, depending on theregion, for hurricane seasons since the 1970s."Our work is consistent with the concept that there is arelationship between increasing sea surface temperature and hurricaneintensity," said Webster. "However, it's not a simple relationship. Infact, it's difficult to explain why the total number of hurricanes andtheir longevity has decreased during the last decade, when sea surfacetemperatures have risen the most.""NCAR is now embarking on a focused series of computer experimentscapable of resolving thunderstorms and the details of tropicalcyclones," said Holland. "The results will help explain the observedintensity changes and extend them to realistic climate changescenarios."The only region that is experiencing more hurricanes and tropicalcyclones overall is the North Atlantic, where they have become morenumerous and longer-lasting, especially since 1995. The North Atlantichas averaged eight to nine hurricanes per year in the last decade,compared to six to seven per year before the increase. Category 4 and 5hurricanes in the North Atlantic have increased at an even faster clip:from 16 in the period of 1975-89 to 25 in the period of 1990-2004, arise of 56%.A study published in July in the journal Nature came to a similarconclusion. Focusing on North Atlantic and North Pacific hurricanes,Kerry Emanuel (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) found an increasein their duration and power, although his study used a differentmeasurement to determine a storm's power.But whether all of this is due to human-induced global warming isstill uncertain, said Webster. "We need a longer data record ofhurricane statistics, and we need to understand more about the rolehurricanes play in regulating the heat balance and circulation in theatmosphere and oceans.""Basic physical reasoning and climate model simulations andprojections motivated this study," said Jay Fein, director of NSF'sclimate and large scale dynamics program, which funded the research."These results will stimulate further research into the complex naturaland anthropogenic processes influencing these tropical cyclone trendsand characteristics."Webster is currently attempting to determine the basic role ofhurricanes in the climate of the planet. "The thing they do more thananything is cool the oceans by evaporating the water and thenredistributing the oceans' tropical heat to higher latitudes," he said."But we don't know a lot about how evaporation from the oceansurface works when the winds get up to around 100 miles per hour, asthey do in hurricanes," said Webster, who adds that this physicalunderstanding will be crucial to connecting trends in hurricaneintensity to overall climate change."If we can understand why the world sees about 85 named storms ayear and not, for example, 200 or 25, then we might be able to say thatwhat we're seeing is consistent with what we'd expect in a globalwarming scenario. Without this understanding, a forecast of the numberand intensity of tropical storms in a future warmer world would bemerely statistical extrapolation."NCAR Tip Sheet: Hurricane Prediction, Behavior, and Impacts -- Georgia Institute of Technology - School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences -- | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 14, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050914090452.htm | Researchers Create Meta-search Engine To Help Locate Displaced People | Louisiana Tech has reached further in its help to Katrina victims, this time through technology. | Dr.Box Leangsuksun, an associate professor of computer science, along withfive computer science graduate students, has created a new Web siteaimed at locating people displaced by Hurricane Katrina.His hopeis that the site will help streamline the search process. Other sitesare available that perform similar tasks, he said, but they contain somuch information that users can be stymied."Our job is to simplify (the process) so the user doesn't have to navigate through so much data," he said.Leangsuksun said work on the search engine began because he couldn’t ignore his desire to help others."Afterthe hurricane hit, I kept watching TV and feeling depressed," he said."I was in Thailand during the tsunami, and I felt bad because I had tocome back to teach and couldn’t help. I thought we should do somethinghere to help the hurricane victims in some way. I feel like this is mysecond chance to help people."Leangsuksun and the Extreme Computing Research Group began working on Though the team put in long hours and worked nonstop through the weekend, Leangsuksun said they feel good."If we can help one or two people find their loved ones, it’s worth the hard work," he said.Noting the site's user friendliness, Leangsuksun said, "Simple is beautiful."The group agreed."Ifa name is not found in our database, the user is directed to anotherlink. From there the user just has to click," Limaye said. "We wantedthe people to have fewer difficulties."The site combs numerousdatabases of sites containing lists of evacuees. Users can alsoregister their information with the site. In some cases, the Web siteprovides locations of where the victims evacuated to and an update ontheir safety.Leangsuksun said since the site was launched it hashad close to 1,000 hits, and he hopes updating it will allow morevictims to find their loved ones."We just want to continue to spread the word," he said, "and hopefully the work we’ve done will be useful."Leangsuksun said he is spreading word of the site through the Louisiana Board of Regents, the media and other contacts. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 14, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050914085517.htm | UW-Madison Tools Help Track Hurricane Ophelia | As Hurricane Ophelia is set to make landfall on the North Carolinacoast on Wednesday or Thursday (Sept. 14 or 15), analysis techniquesdeveloped by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-MadisonTropical Cyclones group in the Cooperative Institute for MeteorologicalSatellite Studies are helping to predict the anticipated path of thestorm. | Since 1982, the Tropical Cyclones group has been developingspecialized tools used by forecasters with weather satellite data usingits Man computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS). The groupforges techniques of use to forecasters, and for any major tropicalstorm its Web site transfers large amounts of data to researchers,forecasters and the general public. (During Hurricane Katrina, the siteexperienced 1.8 million hits.)Most of its work is done far ahead of an actual hurricane,according to team leader Chris Velden, providing online analyses andimagery to forecasters long before storms reach land using theresources of the Data Center of the UW-Madison Space Science andEngineering Center. After using Tropical Cyclone group products duringHurricane Katrina, National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfieldnoted that CIMSS imagery and products would see much future use. As they did with Katrina, forecasters at the hurricane centerand in the National Weather Service will depend on those techniques anddata for Tropical Storm Ophelia. According to Velden, Ophelia is"meandering between tropical storm and hurricane," and because it ishugging the coast, satellite-based data is less critical than othertypes of information, although still helpful. Velden expects the stormto continue up the coast and eventually move out to sea. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 13, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050913124923.htm | Hurricane Aftermath: Infectious Disease Threats From Common, Not Exotic, Diseases | Washington, DC (September 13, 2005) -- In the wake of Katrina, the public health threats from infectious diseases in hurricane-devastated areas are more likely to come from milder, more common infections rather than exotic diseases. These common infections can often be prevented using simple hygiene measures and a little common sense. | "Deadly diseases, such as typhoid or cholera, are unlikely to break out after hurricanes and floods in areas where these diseases do not already naturally occur," says Ruth Berkelman, MD, Chair of the Public and Scientific Affairs Board of the American Society for Microbiology. "The greatest threats to the people in the affected areas are going to be from diseases that were already there." Dr. Berkelman is the Rollins Professor and Director of the Center for Public Health Preparedness and Research at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She is a former Assistant Surgeon General of the United States and former deputy director of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID). Common infectious disease problems in New Orleans in the coming weeks are likely to be skin and soft-tissue infections, most likely from cuts, abrasions and wounds. The primary culprits will be Staphylococcus and Streptococcus bacteria, both of which can generally be treated with available antibiotics. Diseases caused by consumption of contaminated food or water as well as diseases caused by mosquitoes or other insect bites are also a threat. Vibrio vulnificus can also cause serious infections, either wound infections or blood poisoning (septicemia); V. vulnificus is a bacterium that is normally present in Gulf Coast waters and is usually contracted by eating tainted seafood. It is primarily a threat to people with weakened immune systems or liver dysfunction. The CDC has confirmed 15 infections with V. vulnificus, 3 of which were fatal. These cases have occurred in areas other than New Orleans where the water has greater salinity. Another concern is diarrhea and gastrointestinal illnesses from the flood waters. Short bouts of diarrhea and upset stomachs sometimes occur after natural disasters and can be caused sewage contamination of the water. Although at high levels in floodwaters, the E. coli found in New Orleans is the type commonly associated with fecal contamination and is not the E. coli H7:O157 strain that can cause serious kidney disease and bloody diarrhea. "At this point in time, I think it is just common sense to continue drinking only bottled water unless authorities have tested the water now being piped into some facilities and have declared it safe to drink," says Berkelman. "To also prevent risk of infection, people should practice basic hygiene, frequently washing their hands with soap and clean water or disinfecting hands with an alcohol-based hand cleaner. Individuals should not eat food that has been exposed to flood waters or that has not been properly refrigerated." One common misperception is that the body of a person who died as the result of the hurricane and is still in the city poses a risk of infection. "Decaying bodies pose very little risk for major disease outbreaks," says Berkelman. Furthermore, mosquitoes do not spread disease by feeding on dead bodies. There is, however, a risk of mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile because mosquitoes breed in standing water. Appropriate pest management, including addressing the need to get rid of standing water, is an important public health measure, she said. A bacterial disease, leptospirosis, may be caused by exposure to water contaminated by rodent urine and can be treated successfully with antibiotics. Over the long term, mold may also pose a threat. Mold growth is an indicator of excess moisture, and much will need to be done to dry out New Orleans and clean up mold growth. Some environmental molds can cause allergic reactions. For more information on the potential health effects from Hurricane Katrina and what can be done about them, visit the CDC website at The American Society for Microbiology, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is the largest single life science association, with 42,000 members worldwide. Its members work in educational, research, industrial, and government settings on issues such as the environment, the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases, laboratory and diagnostic medicine, and food and water safety. The ASM's mission is to gain a better understanding of basic life processes and to promote the application of this knowledge for improved health and economic and environmental well-being. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 9, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050909220437.htm | NIEHS Launches Website With Information For Assessing Environmental Hazards From Hurricane Katrina | A new website with a Global Information System will provide valuableinformation for assessing environmental hazards caused by HurricaneKatrina. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences(NIEHS), one of the National Institutes of Health, created the websiteto provide the most up-to-date data to public health and safety workerson contaminants in flood waters, infrastructure and industry maps, aswell as demographic information for local populations. | The NIEHS Hurricane Katrina Information Website, accessible at The website also includes a link to a new Global InformationSystem (GIS) that NIEHS is developing with several academic partners. The GIS will contain layers of data, including the locationsof refineries, oil pipelines, industrial facilities, Superfund sites,Toxic Release Inventory Data, agricultural operations, as well as mapsand satellite images of schools, neighborhoods, and medical facilities,that will help assess the short and long effects of Katrina on the Gulfregion. "With a disaster of this magnitude, people need many things,including easy access to science based information so they can makeinformed decisions to further reduce their risk of harm," said NIEHSDirector Dr. David Schwartz. "Consolidating information in this newwebsite is one vehicle that NIEHS is using to help our fellowcitizens."Information in the GIS, such as the demographics of populationsbefore Katrina will be helpful as health officials treat displacedcitizens who may have been previously exposed to toxicants. Subsequentphases will provide more in-depth information to fully assess exposuresand make informed decisions about risk of disease."This GIS has the capability of being a powerful tool to fullyassess and evaluate the short- and long-term environmental healtheffects of Hurricane Katrina. It will help us all make informeddecisions about the uncertainty of risk of exposure and potentiallyenable us to better understand the links between exposure and disease,"said William A. Suk, Ph.D., Director of the NIEHS Superfund BasicResearch Program. Other partners working with NIEHS in the development of thevarious phases of the GIS include Duke University, University ofCalifornia at San Diego, University of Kentucky, Johns Hopkins,University of Arizona, Boston University, Columbia University, ResearchTriangle Institute and Harvard University. The Hurricane Katrina Information Website also provides otherongoing NIEHS efforts related to recovery efforts, includingcollaborations with other federal agencies.The NIEHS, a component of the National Institutes of Health,supports research to understand the effects of the environment on humanhealth. For more information on environmental health topics, pleasevisit our website at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 8, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050908081119.htm | USF Deploys Unmanned Aerial Vehicles To Katrina Rescue Operation | Tampa, FL (Sept. 7, 2005) -- Using two types of small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - one fixed wing and one helicopter - scientists from the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) at the University of South Florida worked with other Florida rescuers in hard-hit Mississippi immediately in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The first known use of small UAVs for an actual disaster, the UAVs demonstrated their usefulness as well as providing a wealth of scientific and engineering data. | The small fixed wing vehicle, looking much like a four-foot-long model airplane, provided video and thermal imagery from 100 to 1,000 feet, giving rescuers an overview of the disaster area. The vehicle is launched by manually throwing it into the air. It requires only a small clearing, about the length of five cars, to take off or land.Carrying a camera, the miniature, electric powered T-Rex helicopter from Like90 ("The platforms, which require less than 10 minutes to set up and fly, were designed to be easily carried by responders as they hike into the debris," said Robin Murphy, CRASAR director. "The UAVs were provided in partnership with a National Science Foundation industry/university consortium that focuses on new safety, security and rescue technology."CRASAR has been focusing on developing and testing small UAVs since being called up by Florida Task Force 3 during Hurricane Charley in 2004."We learned that seeing whether people were trapped on their roofs just beyond sight along a flooded road was critical," said Murphy. "It takes too long for manned helicopters to get there - if the radios are working."At the request of the Louisiana State University Fire Emergency Training Institute (FETI), CRASAR was deployed Aug. 30 from Tampa to assist with rescue efforts just east of the French Quarter in New Orleans. However, because of destroyed or flooded freeways, and lack of secure surface roads, the team had to turn around just short of the city limits, said Murphy.In response to reports of survivors stranded by flood waters, the team was then deployed by Florida responders working out of Stennis Space Center to survey nearby Pearlington, Miss. With progress into Pearlington blocked by complete houses that had been pushed by the storm surge into the middle of the main street, the team launched from an open patch of road surrounded by downed trees and power lines. Within two hours, the responders had the data form the UAVs showing that no survivors were trapped and that the flood waters from the cresting Pearl River were not posing an additional threat."Katrina was so much worse than Charley," added Murphy. "Even though Charley cut a wide swath through Florida, only a few houses in a neighborhood were totally destroyed and a few lucky ones looked largely untouched. In contrast, with Katrina most of the houses were completely gone and only a very few remaining even looked like houses."Murphy and Chandler Griffin of Like90, and other team members, flew over Bay St. Louis Sept. 1 collecting data near the destroyed US 90 bridge while returning to Tampa.CRASAR was responsible for the introduction of small ground mobile robots into emergency response at the World Trade Center in 2001. USF has pioneered sensor, robot, public health and information technology development and insertion for emergency response and preparedness. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 7, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050907101352.htm | NASA's Science Resources Help Agencies Respond To Katrina | NASA science instruments and Earth-orbiting satellites are providingdetailed insight about the environmental impact caused by HurricaneKatrina. Images and data are helping characterize the extent offlooding; damage to homes, businesses and infrastructure; and potentialhazards caused by the storm and its aftermath. | NASA, along with academic institutions and partner agencies, isworking to ensure the Department of Homeland Security and the FederalEmergency Management Agency have the best available information to aidin responding to this catastrophic event.NASA's partner agencies in this endeavor include the U.S. GeologicalSurvey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, theNational Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the Environmental ProtectionAgency, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Coordinated assistance by numerous academic institutions andlaboratories working under NASA grants will be employed by the GulfCoast relief and recovery efforts to provide geospatial informationuseful to first responders and decision makers.NASA aircraft are providing detailed observations of the disasterarea. The aircraft are taking high-resolution observations that can beused to assess the amount of damage to communities and the environment.For example, at the request of the U.S. Geological Survey incooperation with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the ArmyCorps of Engineers, NASA's Experimental Advanced Airborne ResearchLight Detection and Ranging system is surveying the gulf coastline.This system, carried on a Cessna 310, surveyed the northern gulfcoastline on Thursday. Tomorrow the aircraft is scheduled to fly overthe perimeter and surrounding levee around New Orleans to assist indamage assessment of the system.While making its observations of the land, the system has theability to "see" through vegetation, like trees and shrubs, to view theland underneath. Near the coast it can map the beach surface underwater. This will help in the recovery of the shoreline infrastructure;determine hazard areas and environmental loss.The Terra, Aqua and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satelliteshave already provided Earth observations for land cover and rainfall.Terra's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometeris providing data on the magnitude and extent of damage and flooding tothe U.S. Geological Survey Emergency Response Team through its EarthResources Observation Systems Data Center in Sioux Falls, S.D. JPL isresponsible for the American side of the joint U.S.-Japan science teamthat is validating and calibrating that instrument and its dataproducts.NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer instrument onthe Terra and Aqua satellites provided images of flooding, includingpre- and post-disaster comparisons. Data from NASA's QuikScatsatellite, developed and managed by JPL, was one source of windobservations used by the National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration’s Hurricane Research Division to analyze the wind fieldof the storm and to track its path.Another NASA satellite in use is the Earth Observing Mission 1. TheAdvanced Land Imagery multispectral instrument on this satelliteprovided land use and land cover observations useful in determininghurricane damage areas and in aiding in recovery, response andmitigation.NASA satellites are used to improve weather predictions and to studyclimate and natural hazards. The knowledge gained during these missionsaids assessment and recovery operations.For satellite images and additional information on the Web, visit: For information about the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission andReflection Radiometer and QuikScat spacecraft on the Web, visit: For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 2, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050902065309.htm | NOAA Hurricane Hunter Pilot Captures Katrina At Her Meanest | NOAA hurricane hunter WP-3D Orion and Gulfstream IV aircraftconducted ten long flights into and around the eye of HurricaneKatrina. Lt. Mike Silah, a P-3 pilot, got to see Hurricane Katrina upclose and personal, especially when she was an extremely dangerousCategory Five storm in the Gulf of Mexico. The day before the powerfuland destructive storm made landfall on the USA Gulf Coast, Silahsnapped a series of images capturing the eyewall of Katrina. | Silah is a NOAA Corps officer based at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Tampa, Fla.Meanwhile, NOAA has quickly mobilized a wide-range of its resourcesimmediately following Hurricane Katrina’s landfall on the U.S. GulfCoast. NOAA ships, planes and many experts are helping to assess thedamage caused by the powerful storm that is responsible for widespreaddestruction and loss of life.NOAA pre-positioned Navigational Response Teams, or NRTs, which aremobile emergency response units equipped and trained to survey portsand nearby shore waterways immediately following the hurricane. Theseteams can be rapidly transported on a trailer and launched from themfor a quick response. This is especially vital to New Orleans, La., andMobile, Ala., two of the nation's major commercial ports. The NOAAOffice of Coast Survey, working in partnership with the U.S. CoastGuard, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers and local port management willbe coordinating the response.The Navigational Response Teams use multibeam, sidescan sonars anddiving operations to check the port, river or sea bottom for submergedobstructions that could cause hazards to shipping.The NOAA National Geodetic Survey is using a NOAA plane to takeaerial surveys of the impacted areas to assess for damage from erosion,such as occurred to the levees and major evacuation routes. Theseimages will assist both in recovery operations, and long-termrestoration and rebuilding decisions. The images will be made availableto the public on a NOAA Web site on Wednesday.The NOAA Office of Response and Restoration and Damage AssessmentCenter is deploying NOAA scientists and other specialists—incoordination with federal, state and local emergency centers—to assistin evaluating the damages to the many oil and chemical pipelines andplatforms in the region.Water levels, storm surges and flooding are a concern, and NOAAstaff is working closely with the Department of Homeland Security andFEMA to coordinate the flow of appropriate information and data thatwill guide deployment of resources.The NOAA Gulfstream IV high-altitude surveillance jet flew sixfull-endurance missions and the WP-3D Orion flew four missions tosupport the track and intensity forecasting efforts of NOAA’s NationalCenters for Environmental Prediction and National Hurricane Center.Starting with the first mission when Katrina was still a tropical stormin the eastern Bahamas, the crew flew daily between August 24 andAugust 28, using dropwindsondes to measure the environment surroundingthe growing tropical cyclone. While conducting five daily missions andone overnight flight—when Katrina grew strongest and made the criticalturn toward the Gulf Coast, the jet flew a total of 49.7 hours in fivedays. The NOAA crew launched 153 dropwindsondes covering 21,015nautical miles of flight track.Data from the Gulfstream IV, quality assured while aboard theaircraft, was fed by satellite communication directly into the primaryNOAA forecasting computer models. These data helped the NOAA NationalHurricane Center to first catch Katrina's turn toward the southwest asshe reached hurricane strength just before the South Florida landfall.The G-IV continued its storm coverage as the tropical cyclonere-emerged into the Gulf of Mexico and detected perfect atmosphericconditions surrounding the storm for rapid development. As Katrinareached Category Five hurricane status, the NOAA jet used dropwinsondecoverage to help the NOAA National Hurricane Center accurately definethe range of hurricane and tropical storm force winds, while adding tothe accuracy of the forecasted position and time of landfall on thenorthern Gulf Coast.A full 60 hours out, the NOAA National Hurricane Center, assisted bythese reports, had the New Orleans and Gulf Coast area well within thecone of strike probability. Twenty-four hours prior to landfall, thecenter of the forecasted track was approximately 15 miles off theactual track, and 12 hours prior, the forecasted track was less than 10miles off. At approximately 7:10 a.m. EDT, Hurricane Katrina madelandfall in southern Plaquemines Parish, La., just south of Buras, as aCategory Four hurricane with maximum winds estimated at 140 mph to theeast of the center.###NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated toenhancing economic security and national safety through the predictionand research of weather and climate-related events and providingenvironmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 2, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050902064619.htm | NOAA Conducts Aerial Survey Of Regions Ravaged By Hurricane Katrina | NOAA has posted online more than 350 aerial images of the U.S. GulfCoast areas that were decimated by Hurricane Katrina. NOAA will beflying more missions in the days ahead that will yield hundreds ofadditional aerial digital images. The regions photographed on Tuesdayrange from Bay St. Louis to Pascagoula, Miss. The southeast coastalareas of Louisiana are being photographed on Wednesday. The aerialphotograph missions were conducted by the NOAA Remote Sensing Divisionthe day after Katrina made landfall at approximately 7:10 a.m. EDT onAug. 29, 2005, in Plaquemines Parish, La. | NOAA used an Emerge/Applanix Digital Sensor System, or DSS, toacquire the images from an altitude of 7,500 feet. The equipment wasmounted on NOAA’s Cessna Citation aircraft, which is a versatiletwin-engine jet aircraft modified for acquiring coastal remote sensingimagery. The aircraft can support a wide variety of remote sensingconfigurations, including large format aerial photography, as well asdata collection for digital cameras, hyperspectral, multispectral andLIDAR systems.The NOAA Cessna Citation aircraft acquired 3-D images of the WorldTrade Center and Pentagon just days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.The NOAA imagery was acquired to support the agency’s nationalsecurity and emergency response requirements. In addition, the imagerywill be used for ongoing research efforts for testing and developingstandards for airborne digital imagery.NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce, is dedicated toenhancing economic security and national safety through the predictionand research of weather and climate-related events and providingenvironmental stewardship of the nation's coastal and marine resources.NOAA Aerial Images of USA Gulf Coast Impacted by Hurricane Katrina -- NOAA Remote Sensing Division -- NOAA National Geodetic Survey -- | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
September 2, 2005 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/09/050902061926.htm | UCF, Georgia Researchers Project Hurricane Effects On Oil, Gas Production | About 86 percent of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and 59 percentof the natural gas output are being disrupted by Hurricane Katrina,according to a new prediction model developed by a University ofCentral Florida researcher and his Georgia colleague. | On their Web site, Johnson and Watson calculated projected damage based on windspeeds, the severity of waves and other anticipated effects of thestorm. The data reflect every active oil and gas lease in the Gulf ofMexico.While the oil and gas production portion of the Web site isstill in the experimental stage, it already is gaining attention frombloggers and economic- and investment-oriented Web sites.The site also tracks storms worldwide with hourly updates andlists estimates of how much damage specific hurricanes are likely tocause based on their tracks and property records. The site usesproperty databases to estimate damage to residential, commercial andother types of structures in each county and city. Projected lossesalso take into account economic losses, such as businesses and themeparks having to shut down.Johnson, an expert in the statistical aspects of hurricanemodeling and forecasting, and Watson, whose specialties are geophysicsand numerical modeling, have worked together on severalhurricane-related research projects during the past 10 years. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,005 |
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