Summary- According to the Scientific American, Annie Sneed exemplifies how "Summer and fall 2017 saw an unusual string of record-breaking hurricanes pummel the U.S. Gulf Coast, eastern seaboard, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean."
- Many scientists are asking themselves if climate change has influenced these extreme events that occurred in 2017. - Experts are looking at multiple reasons as for why "our warming world might mean for monster stores in the U.S and worldwide." - Experts have been looking at storm intensity, frequency, size, duration, storm surge, rainfall, and expanding reach to find out what is going on with our planet. - The warmer world creates stronger storms. "Since 1981 the maximum wind speed of the most powerful hurricanes has risen." - Higher ocean heat provides more energy for storms, fueling their intensity. - "Storms remove heat from tropical oceans in the form of moisture and pump the heat up into the atmospherem, where heat is redistributed and radiated out into space." - Scientists agree that climate change means higher storm surges are hitting coastlines. |
Was the Extreme 2017 Hurricane Season Driven by Climate Change?Facts- Hurricane Harvey brought floods to Houston.
- Irma was one of the two strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the northern Atlantic. - Irma havoc on Florida and multiple Caribbean islands. - Maria devastated Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. - Hurricane Patricia, in 2015, set the record at the time for top wind speed (215 miles per hour) in the north Atlantic. - In 2016, Winston shattered records as the most intense cyclone in the Southern Hemisphere. - The dynamic between storms and warming oceans occurs in part because of the role hurricanes play in our climate system: they rebalance Earth’s heat. |
Key Terms- Hurricane: A storm with a violent wind, in particular a tropical cyclone in the Caribbean.
- Storm: A violent disturbance of the atmosphere with strong winds and usually rain, thunder, lightning, or snow. - Intensity: The quality of being intense. - Frequency: The rate at which something occurs or is repeated over a particular period of time or in a given sample. - Storm surge: A rising of the sea as a result of atmospheric pressure changes and wind associated with a storm. |
Opinion
In my opinion, hurricanes will keep increasing over the years because the oceans will keep getting warmer every century. Multiple individuals believe that this has been occurring because of global warming which is a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the Earth climate system. Unfortunately, there are many disadvantages that come with this disaster such as the destruction of lives, vegetation, and livestock. They also cause floods which causes diseases (ex. typhoid fever, cholera, leptospirosis, hepatitis, and other) that can kill multiple individuals. Another disadvantage is that if the winds are too strong, they can destroy the habitat of multiple species. Hurricanes also lead to economic problems since there would be many disasters that will need to be repair. Although there are multiple disadvantages that comes with hurricanes, there are also advantages such as people getting together and help each other after the hurricane is gone and that it lowers temperature and helps to build up the coastal areas of islands, meaning that it makes island wider. Throughout time, engineers are looking for ways to decrease hurricanes. One way that they found is with the "sunglass effect" which according to Kelly Dickerson, Tech Insider, "pumping billions of tons of a dense gas into the atmosphere could create a 'sunglasses effect,' which they say would absorb some sunlight and cool down warn ocean water, the engines of hurricanes."