YosemiteSam
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I've got two articles for you!
NASA team launches huge study into what causes hurricanes
AND
Ocean Color Can Steer Hurricanes
=================================
NASA team launches huge study into what causes hurricanes
What makes a tropical depression turn into a hurricane?
It’s a question that has puzzled hurricane chasers and scientists alike for years.
But now Ed Zipser, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah, is hoping that research he and a team of scientists are doing this month will unlock the key to this mystery.
The quest to understand the inner workings of tropical storms or depressions and figure out what turns them into full-blown hurricanes is like the quest for the “holy grail” for atmospheric scientists, Zipser said.
But he’s hoping that the experiments he and others are conducting over the next few weeks of hurricane season will provide insights into which physical processes or environmental factors are key triggers in hurricane formation and intensification.
Other factors that the scientists will look at include: whether lightning can be used as a predictor of a storm’s intensity; what role dust from the Sahara plays; and what role does humidity, temperature, precipitation and clouds play?
Tracking the path of hurricanes has been easy in recent years thanks to satellites and supercomputers.
But figuring out which tropical storms or depressions turn into full-blown hurricanes is more guessing game than science.
There are two theories behind the genesis and intensification of a hurricane, Zipser said.
One suggests that the large-scale environment around the storm or tropical depression revs it up and turns it into an intense hurricane.
The other model suggests that small-scale formations or activity about 100 kilometres from the centre are the systems that intensify the hurricane.
“What we don’t know is, if you have strong thunderstorms near the centre of the storm is that making it worse,” said Zipser in an interview with the Star.
“That’s one of the things we’re going to try to find out in this program. We’re trying to understand the relative roles of the large-scale and small-scale environment around and in the hurricane.”
Equally important to the research is the question: Why do some storms simply fail to ignite, and crash and burn into obscurity, never becoming a hurricane.
Zipser, who is one of three scientists helping lead the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment, hopes this summer there will finally be a definitive answer to the inner workings of a hurricane.
But much will depend on Mother Nature, he said. “What we hope is that we have two or three storms that intensify and then three storms that look pregnant and fail to intensify.”
The experiment, which is being described as the largest-ever hurricane research project, is using three NASA planes, multiple images from NASA satellites, and four planes from research partners the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency and the National Science Foundation.
The plan is to use all this flight power to track the storms or hurricanes for 24 hours straight. One of the planes is NASA’s Global Hawk, an unmanned drone plane used by the U.S. Air Force that can fly continuously over a storm system for up to 16 hours. The other planes include a WB-57 and a DC-8.
The team will also be using some state-of-the-art hurricane observation instrumentation – a microwave radiometer and radar will provide insight into the “hot towers” of convection found in cyclones, and a NASA designed and built laser radar will provide measurements of wind speed in three dimensions, including vertically.
“The plan is to take accurate measurements on large-scale and small-scale processes and do it from multiple airplanes several times a day,” explains Zipser.
Zipser and others are hoping the study, which begins Saturday and wraps up on Sept. 25, will provide a more precise view of what is going on below the cloud tops and near the eye of the storm.
======================================
Ocean Color Can Steer Hurricanes
The most powerful, deadly storms on the planet are beholden to the tiniest of marine creatures.
According to a new study, plankton have the ability to determine whether clusters of tropical thunderstorms spin up into monster hurricanes, and to steer mature storms across large swaths of the ocean.
Plankton are ubiquitous in the ocean, their legions of tiny photosynthetic bodies tinting the blue ocean green with chlorophyll. Even the deep azure of the North Pacific Gyre, a vast "ocean desert" between Japan and California, has a touch of murk to it (pictured below in a satellite composite image). Green water traps light and heat from the sun in the shallows, which raises surface temperatures and makes for prime hurricane-forming conditions.
In a new study upcoming in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (pdf), a team of scientists wondered what would happen if all of the plankton were removed form the Pacific Ocean, leaving nothing but an empty blue basin. Sunlight would pour deeper into the ocean and surface waters would stay cool, but what would be the effect on hurricanes?
"We found that a blue ocean reduces typhoons in the northwest Pacific by 70 percent," lead author Anand Gnanadesikan of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, describing a computer simulation of a lifeless ocean that the team put together.
SLIDE SHOW: Some of the most dazzling views of Earth from space include plankton blooms, browse through some of our favorite space pics (Planet Green)
What few storms did form in the simulation hugged the equator, the only area of water warm enough to sustain them. "You got fewer typhoons making it up toward Japan and south China, and more in Vietnam and Cambodia," Gnanadesikan said, adding, "[a perfectly blue ocean] is of course unrealistic, but even a smaller change in ocean color would have a significant effect."
For example, a just slight tweak in ocean color could send 25 percent more hurricanes barreling into Hawaii, an outlook that would have major implications for how communities prepare for wind damage, storm surges, and other hurricane-related hazards.
Fortunately, the ocean isn't fickle enough that we have to worry about every single plankton bloom that comes along. It likely takes several high- or low-plankton years to change the course and intensity of storms significantly.
"It's not a case of if you went and dropped cyanide in the ocean in the path of a hurricane, kill the plankton, and you could suddenly turn it off," Gnanadesikan said.
That's because it takes time for the sun's heat to propagate through the ocean and have its full effect on the atmosphere. In the "blue ocean" experiment, the team found that surface waters stayed cooler, but some of the warm deep water circulated toward the equator. More evaporation and cloud formation over equatorial waters strengthened atmospheric circulation and wind shear (which discourages hurricanes) in more northerly latitudes.
"It's quite a surprise," Gnanadesikan said. "This is something that most people don't think about -- why should people who forecast hurricanes care about what color the ocean is? It points out these connections between ocean color and very important weather phenomena."
The implications for the future are far from certain. A recent study in Nature suggested that ocean productivity has been declining steadily since the late 19th century. But the team noted a lull in hurricane activity in the 1960s matches up well with low chlorophyll levels in the Pacific gyres around the same time. Today, chlorophyll is about twice as abundant as it was back then.
NASA team launches huge study into what causes hurricanes
AND
Ocean Color Can Steer Hurricanes
=================================
NASA team launches huge study into what causes hurricanes
What makes a tropical depression turn into a hurricane?
It’s a question that has puzzled hurricane chasers and scientists alike for years.
But now Ed Zipser, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Utah, is hoping that research he and a team of scientists are doing this month will unlock the key to this mystery.
The quest to understand the inner workings of tropical storms or depressions and figure out what turns them into full-blown hurricanes is like the quest for the “holy grail” for atmospheric scientists, Zipser said.
But he’s hoping that the experiments he and others are conducting over the next few weeks of hurricane season will provide insights into which physical processes or environmental factors are key triggers in hurricane formation and intensification.
Other factors that the scientists will look at include: whether lightning can be used as a predictor of a storm’s intensity; what role dust from the Sahara plays; and what role does humidity, temperature, precipitation and clouds play?
Tracking the path of hurricanes has been easy in recent years thanks to satellites and supercomputers.
But figuring out which tropical storms or depressions turn into full-blown hurricanes is more guessing game than science.
There are two theories behind the genesis and intensification of a hurricane, Zipser said.
One suggests that the large-scale environment around the storm or tropical depression revs it up and turns it into an intense hurricane.
The other model suggests that small-scale formations or activity about 100 kilometres from the centre are the systems that intensify the hurricane.
“What we don’t know is, if you have strong thunderstorms near the centre of the storm is that making it worse,” said Zipser in an interview with the Star.
“That’s one of the things we’re going to try to find out in this program. We’re trying to understand the relative roles of the large-scale and small-scale environment around and in the hurricane.”
Equally important to the research is the question: Why do some storms simply fail to ignite, and crash and burn into obscurity, never becoming a hurricane.
Zipser, who is one of three scientists helping lead the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment, hopes this summer there will finally be a definitive answer to the inner workings of a hurricane.
But much will depend on Mother Nature, he said. “What we hope is that we have two or three storms that intensify and then three storms that look pregnant and fail to intensify.”
The experiment, which is being described as the largest-ever hurricane research project, is using three NASA planes, multiple images from NASA satellites, and four planes from research partners the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency and the National Science Foundation.
The plan is to use all this flight power to track the storms or hurricanes for 24 hours straight. One of the planes is NASA’s Global Hawk, an unmanned drone plane used by the U.S. Air Force that can fly continuously over a storm system for up to 16 hours. The other planes include a WB-57 and a DC-8.
The team will also be using some state-of-the-art hurricane observation instrumentation – a microwave radiometer and radar will provide insight into the “hot towers” of convection found in cyclones, and a NASA designed and built laser radar will provide measurements of wind speed in three dimensions, including vertically.
“The plan is to take accurate measurements on large-scale and small-scale processes and do it from multiple airplanes several times a day,” explains Zipser.
Zipser and others are hoping the study, which begins Saturday and wraps up on Sept. 25, will provide a more precise view of what is going on below the cloud tops and near the eye of the storm.
======================================
Ocean Color Can Steer Hurricanes
The most powerful, deadly storms on the planet are beholden to the tiniest of marine creatures.
According to a new study, plankton have the ability to determine whether clusters of tropical thunderstorms spin up into monster hurricanes, and to steer mature storms across large swaths of the ocean.
Plankton are ubiquitous in the ocean, their legions of tiny photosynthetic bodies tinting the blue ocean green with chlorophyll. Even the deep azure of the North Pacific Gyre, a vast "ocean desert" between Japan and California, has a touch of murk to it (pictured below in a satellite composite image). Green water traps light and heat from the sun in the shallows, which raises surface temperatures and makes for prime hurricane-forming conditions.
In a new study upcoming in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (pdf), a team of scientists wondered what would happen if all of the plankton were removed form the Pacific Ocean, leaving nothing but an empty blue basin. Sunlight would pour deeper into the ocean and surface waters would stay cool, but what would be the effect on hurricanes?
"We found that a blue ocean reduces typhoons in the northwest Pacific by 70 percent," lead author Anand Gnanadesikan of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said, describing a computer simulation of a lifeless ocean that the team put together.
SLIDE SHOW: Some of the most dazzling views of Earth from space include plankton blooms, browse through some of our favorite space pics (Planet Green)
What few storms did form in the simulation hugged the equator, the only area of water warm enough to sustain them. "You got fewer typhoons making it up toward Japan and south China, and more in Vietnam and Cambodia," Gnanadesikan said, adding, "[a perfectly blue ocean] is of course unrealistic, but even a smaller change in ocean color would have a significant effect."
For example, a just slight tweak in ocean color could send 25 percent more hurricanes barreling into Hawaii, an outlook that would have major implications for how communities prepare for wind damage, storm surges, and other hurricane-related hazards.
Fortunately, the ocean isn't fickle enough that we have to worry about every single plankton bloom that comes along. It likely takes several high- or low-plankton years to change the course and intensity of storms significantly.
"It's not a case of if you went and dropped cyanide in the ocean in the path of a hurricane, kill the plankton, and you could suddenly turn it off," Gnanadesikan said.
That's because it takes time for the sun's heat to propagate through the ocean and have its full effect on the atmosphere. In the "blue ocean" experiment, the team found that surface waters stayed cooler, but some of the warm deep water circulated toward the equator. More evaporation and cloud formation over equatorial waters strengthened atmospheric circulation and wind shear (which discourages hurricanes) in more northerly latitudes.
"It's quite a surprise," Gnanadesikan said. "This is something that most people don't think about -- why should people who forecast hurricanes care about what color the ocean is? It points out these connections between ocean color and very important weather phenomena."
The implications for the future are far from certain. A recent study in Nature suggested that ocean productivity has been declining steadily since the late 19th century. But the team noted a lull in hurricane activity in the 1960s matches up well with low chlorophyll levels in the Pacific gyres around the same time. Today, chlorophyll is about twice as abundant as it was back then.
Wait for it......
