of global warming. This increases the frequency in which hurricanes are created, contributing to the…
The Gore evidence for the dangers of global warming is quite powerful. He states in his essay, “The Time to Act is Now”: The science us extremely clear: global warming may not affect the frequency of hurricanes, but it makes the average hurricane stronger, magnifying it destructive power. In the years ahead, there will be more storms like Katrina, unless we change course. Indeed, we had two more category 5 storms since Katrina—including Wilma, which before landfall was the strongest hurricane ever measured in the Atlantic. We know that hurricanes are heat engine that thrive on warm water. We know that heat-trapping gasses…
William M. Smith, Senior Director of Emergency Preparedness at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), a nonprofit that operates 20 academic, community and specialty hospitals, says lives can be saved with a hospital’s emergency preparedness efforts.…
The damage caused by the hurricane was immense. On Monday August 29 area affiliates of local television station WDSU reported New Orleans was experiencing widespread flooding due to several Army Corps-built levee breaches, and that there were several instances of catastrophic damage in residential and business areas. Entire neighborhoods on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain causeway were…
Danny Glover once stated, “When Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, it did not turn the region into a Third World country…it revealed one” (Glover). As the winds reached speeds of 100 to 140 miles per hour, water crashed against the levees, breaking them, and flooding 80% of Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina’s peaked at a category five, but disintegrated into a category three. The third deadliest hurricane is what Hurricane Katrina achieved. In the wake of a dark time, Hurricane Katrina proved to America how crucial preparedness is and three reasons Hurricane Katrina proved unpreparedness include; The New Orleans poorly built levee system, the prolonged displacement of hundreds of thousands…
Hurricane Sandy was a superstorm that affected many people and their homes. This hurricane had very strong winds and lots and lots of flooding. Many people struggled a lot after this storm. Hurricane Sandy even took lives of many people. This hurricane started off as a tropical wave in the Caribbean and quickly turned into a tropical storm in only six hours. The total death toll reached 285 including at least 125 deaths in the United States. As you can see Hurricane Sandy was a very severe tropical storm which affected the lives of many.…
Global warming doesn't create hurricanes, but it does make them stronger and more dangerous. Because the ocean is getting warmer, tropical storms can pick up more energy and become more powerful. So global warming could…
Weather related disaster is also a biggie in climate change. The three main factors are drought, flooding, and storms. Drought is caused by lack of precipitation over a long time. Without the rain, serious problems happen to the environment and people. Flooding is when the heavy rain overflows the river that also can…
In Puerto Rico, 3.4 million Americans are without electricity after Hurricane Maria, like a 50-mile wide tornado, virtually obliterated the island’s infrastructure. Essentials like food and water are nearly impossible to distribute, especially to the parts of the island that were hit the hardest. Local officials worry they may not reach everyone in time. Yet Donald Trump remained silent all weekend on the worst U.S. humanitarian crisis since Hurricane Katrina crushed New Orleans. Instead, the president obsessed over whether football players stand or kneel during the national anthem.…
Even though Hurricane Sandy was challenging to forecast, lack of proper and useful information confused the public along with a false sense of confidence, eventually leaving 70% of the population behind after evacuation orders. The National Hurricane Center could not label the storm a hurricane and because of NOAA rules, they could not even set out warnings for it. Between the absence of hurricane warnings, late evacuation orders, and citizen’s previous experience one year earlier with Hurricane Irene, many people felt they did not need to evacuate. This false confidence that nothing “huge” will happen to them, contributes to a decrease of preparation. Being the most destructive and deadliest storm of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane season, Hurricane Sandy traveled through the Caribbean and up the Eastern Coast of the United States in late October 2012. The storm caused $50 billion in damage and killed 71 people in the United States alone.…
In the study done by Emanuel, Sundararajan, and Williams in 2008 they concluded that the frequency of the hurricanes will diminish but their intensity will increase in some locations. Emanuel’s later studies published in 2007 and 2005 also expresses there is a trend in increasing numbers of storms and their intensity. Webster expresses in his research paper that he agrees there is a 30 year trend towards more frequent and intense hurricanes (Webster 2005). On the other hand, researchers like Anthes and Pielke are more apprehensive about making conclusions about whether there is an actual trend or not. Anthes states in his study that that no one event or single season should be attributed to changes in climate (2006). He goes on to say that it is too early to accept or to deny that hurricanes are linked to global warming. Pielke declares that it is too premature to make conclusions on this topic and gives three reasons in his paper (2005). He believes that there is no connection between green house gasses and the behavior of hurricanes, that there is scientific consensus that there will be changes in hurricane intensity but it will most likely be small, and lastly that the population’s perception of hurricanes are dwarfed by the influence of its own projections of growing wealth and…
Officials sustain that the atmospheric warming supposedly has escalated to such high levels because of the high levels of carbon dioxide emitted by our consumption of fossil fuels. Production of electricity by power plants, oil used to heat homes and their by products have produced pollution that has become trapped in our atmosphere. This in turn causes ocean temperatures get warmer, and this it causes stronger storms. Global warming is said to have something to do with these devastating storms that hit New Orleans. Many have questioned whether global warming contributes to developing these horrifying hurricanes. Based on the online article “Two recent articles, one in the August issue of Nature, and one in the most recent (September, 2005) Science Magazine, have introduced dramatic new evidence that global warming has significantly affected hurricane destructiveness. These findings are further supported by an earlier article in Science Magazine (8 July 2005) reporting clear evidence of human-caused global warming in the Earth's oceans. The article in Nature shows a strong correlation between sea temperature and annual hurricane power in three different hurricane basins, the North Atlantic and two in the…
A tropical cyclone is a particular type of lowpressure system. It is called a hurricane in theUnited States and a typhoon in Asia. Tropicalcyclones are areas of warm, moist air risingrapidly. The upward ¯ow of air is de¯ected by theCoriolis effect (winds de¯ected by the Earth'srotation), creating a rotation around a centralcore, known as the `eye'. Tropical cyclones areoften accompanied by very strong winds (gusts ofover 300 kilometres per hour have been recorded),torrential rain (1800 millimetres in 24 hours havebeen recorded) and very rough seas.…
In terms of CC, 1°C increase in sea surface temperatures could increase tropical cyclone intensity by 10 percent. Cyclones bring severe winds, storm surges, and flood that impact on lives, crops and property. Cyclone SIDR, on 15 November 2007, struck the South-West coastal region of Bangladesh and total…
"Climate change is now a clear and present danger and a national security concern for our country,"…