Draft 1: The Environment of Hurricane Formation

This topic submitted by Jessica Downing and Karen Kosiba ( downinjl@muohio.edu, kosibaka@po.mu ) on 1/23/02 .

Our topic of study will be concerning hurricanes. From that broad subject, we will focus on different aspects of hurricanes, in particular hurricane formation/intensity as a function of sea temperature, the effects of El Nino and La Nina in past hurricane seasons, global warming effects [increasing sea temperatures, increased levels of atmospheric CO2, rising sea level etc...], and also the societal aspects of damage and economic costs to the population living in the coastal areas, such as New Orleans, Miami FL, and other Gulf Coast cities.

Our predicitions for this research project are that an increase in sea temperatures, CO2, and sea level [basic subjects of Global warming] over the past years will cause a paralleled increase in hurricane intensity/frequency. Also, because of the general warming that has taken place over the past few years, we believe that a study of hurricane data will show an increase in hurricane formation as well.

Seeing as how it would be a bit impossible at this point, due to lack of funds, time and transportation methods, we will not be able to fly down to the Gulf of Mexico to take sea temperature readings or actually test any of our hypotheses. Instead, we will be taking carefully detailed notes from previous research conducted on current websites [NOAA, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies] as well as dated periodicals [AMS Publications], and then manipulating it to support our project.

We endeavor to learn more in-depth information concerning hurricane dynamics, other than the surface knowledge most people have concerning hurricanes. We believe that our research will lend a very thourough understanding to how hurricanes operate.

ANNOTATED BIBLIO:
websites:
1. "Hurricane Dynamics." hurricanes.noaa.gov. NOAA. (C) 2001
2. "Common Questions about Climate Change." www.gciro.org/ipcc/qa/cover.html. UN Environmental Program, World Meteorological Organization. US Global Change Research Information Office, 2001.
3. "Finding out about Global Warming and climate Change." www.ukrivers.net/climate.html. UK Rivers Network, BBC News Online, 2001.
4. "All About Hurricanes." wwww.yatcom.com/neworl/weather/hurricance.html. Virtually New Orleans, Yatcom Communications, 1996.
5. "How Will the Frequency of Hurricanes be Affected by Climate Change?" www.giss.nasa.gov/research/intro/druyan_02/index.html. Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Reasearch. 2001
6. Current News. www.disasternews.net/news/archives.php?category=hurricanes. Disaster News Network, 2002.

**We chose this selection of articles because they covered a broad range of our topics, while communicating in the more scientific aspect, as well as in a "reader-friendly" language. We feel that these websites, especially those pertaining to NOAA and NASA (GISS) will be especially helpful, as they contained loads of information will great visual representations of their data.**

journals:
1. Henderson-Sellers, H. et. al., 1998: Tropical cyclones and global climate change: a post-IPCC assessment, 79, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
2. Merrill, R. T., 1988: Environmental influences on hurricane intensifiation, 45, journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.
3. Walsh, k. J. E. and B. F. Evans, 2000: tropical cyclone intensity increase near australia as a result of climate change, 13, Journal of Climate.
4. Evans, J. L., 1993: Sensitivity of tropical cyclone intensity to sea surface temperature, 6, Journal of Climate.
5. DeMaria, M., J. Kaplan, 1994: Sea surface temperature and the maximum intensity of atlantic tropical cyclones, 7, Journal of Climate.
6. Emanual, K. A., 1987: The dependence of hurricane intensity on climate, 326, Nature.
7. Knutson, T. R., et. al, 1998: Simulated increase of hurricane intensities in a CO2-warmed climate, 279, Science.

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