Hurricane Intensity

THESIS STATEMENT: One of nature’s most powerful and destructive storms are hurricanes. Although they can be deadly to humans and animals and have been known to cause extensive destruction, they also play a very important and beneficial role on Earth.

Natural disasters occurring from the climate change could be on the rise. Global warming has been rumored to be causing more hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, heavier monsoonal rains that cause major flooding, mud slides, and other disasters worldwide. A tropical cyclone, also referred to as hurricanes, typhoons, or cyclones, depending on where in the world the cyclone is occurring, are one of the world’s grandest shows of energy provided by nature. Hurricanes are large, swirling, low pressure storms that have sustained winds of over 74 miles an hour and are formed over warm ocean waters (NASA, n.d.). The purpose of this paper is to discuss hurricanes

Graumann, Axel. Hurricane Katrina. [Electronic Resource] : A Climatological Perspective : Preliminary Report. Asheville, NC : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service, National Climatic Data Center, [2006], 2006. Technical report: no. 2005-01. EBSCOhost,

Did you know that Hurricanes have killed approximately 1.9 million people worldwide over the past 200 years. (Karen lenhardt said in her 2017 article on facts about hurricanes). We are seeing more and more of these occur, this year we have already encountered 13 named storms, 7 of them being hurricanes. Only four other seasons since 1995 have had that many by Sept. 18. Just two more by the end of the year would put 2017 in the top 15 since 1851. Maggie Astor stated in her New York Times news report about the 2017 Hurricane season . We must take notice and learn about the hurricane process so that we are able to understand the stages that hurricanes go through to get to be so fierce and devastating to get the strength to kill that many people.

There is speculation that climate change may have also have contributed to the storms intensity. Global warming may have made Sandy wetter and stronger. Hurricanes and tropical storms are fueled by warm water evaporating into the air. Records indicate that ocean surface temperatures are up 0.9 degrees

Hurricanes are formed over tropical waters. These intense storms consist of winds over 74 miles per hour (Ahrens & Sampson, 2011). The storms addressed here are Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy. This paper will explore the contrasts and comparisons between these two horrific storms.

Greshko explains that this hurricane season has been so active because atmospheric conditions and surface seas temperatures have been warmer than normal. There have been other major hurricanes to make landfall on the continental US over the years but this season has still been unusual with two category 4 storms hitting land in a small space of time. It seems as though the longer it goes, the more severe it gets. Finally, Greshko concludes this article by talking about the cause of this catastrophic hurricane season being climate change. The climate plays a big role in weather and the warmer conditions will make for much worse tropical storms in the Atlantic. In the future individual will drop more precipitation in the future, since warmer air can hold more water vapor. The warmer temperatures are a result of human activity an if the climate continues to warm up then its predicted that storm surges will become much worse.

Meyer goes on to analyze the likely cause behind the massive increase in major hurricanes. The culprit in the statistical phenomenon: Accumulated cyclone energy, which measures the strength of a hurricane over the course of its existence, done by taking maximum

Tropical storms and hurricanes have become more intense during the past twenty years in North Carolina, due to climate change. Hurricane wind speeds and rainfall rates are likely to increase as the climate continues to warm. Whether the storms become more intense or not, homes, and infrastructure are at risk due to rising sea level. “Increased rainfall may further exacerbate flooding in some coastal areas. Since 1958, the amount of precipitation during heavy rainstorms has increased by 27 percent in the Southeast, and the trend toward increasingly heavy rainstorms is likely to continue.”

In August of 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall in southern Texas, breaking precipitation records and causing billions of dollars of damage in the process. Further, the 2017 hurricane season was one of the costliest tropical seasons on record. Such a significant disaster sparked conversation nationwide over the impact of climate change in relation to severe weather. However, scientists continue to disagree on whether climate change impacted Hurricane Harvey. Some believe that climate change worsened Harvey’s extreme behavior, while others deny that climate change was the culprit. Based on recent research, there is sufficient evidence available to believe that the current trend in climate change impacts hurricanes by intensifying them.

The storm came all together at once, it was a ”recipe for disaster.” No one was prepared for the hurricane of 1938. Some factors that made the hurricane so powerful were the conditions, human error, and the impacts that caused a lot people to be homeless, in need of help, or in the worst case, dead.

Civil engineers from Colorado State University discovered an effective way to identify and predict hurricane impacts. Hussam Mahmoud an associate professor of the civil and environmental engineering department and Stephanie Pilkington a graduate civil engineering student created a hurricane impact level model that estimates damages caused by storms before they occur. In the article, Mahmoud explains that wind speeds are not the main cause of hurricanes. Other impacts caused by flooding and precipitation combined with population density and quality of infrastructure are the main causes of hurricane activity.

During a hurricane, it is possible to have tornadoes. It is least possible, but it can occur. Water vapor is the fuel for hurricanes because it releases the heat needed. This heat energy was absorbed by the water vapor when it was evaporated

How does the change in climate affect the frequency and the path of those powerful hurricanes and tropical storms in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans? Global warming has a profound vast impact on the Earth. Besides landmasses, ocean is warmed unevenly. Additionally, unexpected changes in ocean current will aggregate the uneven distribution of water temperatures along the globe. Warmer or cooler than normal sea surface temperatures occur along the Tropical Pacific will provide good indications of the future climatic change. These weather scenarios are also known as El Nino, and La Nina. They are indicated by the Southern Oscillation Index, which shows the prevailing winds in the

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are of the most extreme and dangerous weather phenomena on Earth. In the United States, landfalling TCs account for an average of $10 billion damages annually (Pielke et al. 2008). Hurricane Katrina (2005) alone caused $81 billion of damages and took more than 1,800 lives away. In developing countries, TC landfalls can be extremely detrimental. For example, Cyclone Nargis (2008) took more than 130,000 lives in Myanmer (Burma) . Due to the catastrophic nature of TCs, substantial efforts have been devoted to short-term predictions of TC track and intensity in an effort to minimize the damages and casualties.