How Does Climate Change Affect Hurricanes

811 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Causes of hurricanes and Effects

Purpose of Experiment

We chose how climate change affected hurricanes as our topic because it’s important to understand hurricanes and how it is created and formed. Over the past years, the intensity of hurricanes have increased due to what is believe by warming waters/oceans. As you can see, our topic needs to be understood so that people around the world will be prepared and know when and why hurricanes are created.
Methods

First, we gathered information about hurricanes and climate change. This helped us understand our topic more and see how climate change affects our world through things like the amount and strength of hurricanes. Then, we found data proving that climate change creates warmer sea temperatures, making stronger hurricanes. …show more content…

Hurricanes form near the equator over warmer ocean waters. The word hurricane is used to describe large storms that form in the Atlantic Ocean or the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The scientific term for hurricanes is tropical cyclone. Hurricanes may also be known as typhoons, cyclones, severe tropical cyclones, and cyclonic storms. Hurricanes mostly depend on warm water to fuel themselves. Tropical cyclones form in tropical regions where the ocean is 80º for the top 50 meters of sea. Hurricanes need warm water as well as wind for a main ingredient. Warm water fuels the hurricane and creates higher wind speeds. Wind blowing westward across the Atlantic from Africa helps in the creation of hurricanes. The wind passing over the sea surface makes water evaporate and rise. As the water rises, the water vapor cools. This then condenses back into large water droplets, forming cumulonimbus clouds. The development of a tropical cyclone is divided into four main stages: tropical disturbance, tropical depression, tropical storm, and finally, tropical …show more content…

Heat energy is then released from cooling water vapor. The top of the clouds become warmer and make the air pressure higher. This causes wind to move outward and away from the low pressure zone. Air move towards the lower pressure zone and creates more thunderstorms. Wind in the storm cloud center then spin faster in a circular motion reaching winds between 25 to 38 mph. When winds reach 39 mph they are considered a tropical storm and the storm is named based on what letter and gender scientist left off on for hurricane names. Wind then blows faster and faster as it twists and turns around the eye of the storm. The eye of the storm is a calm center.
Fun fact: In the Northern hemisphere the wind goes counterclockwise and in the Southern hemisphere the wind goes clockwise. This is the Coriolis effect. When wind speed reaches 74 mph the tropical storm is now considered a tropical cyclone or a hurricane. The storm will then be at least 50,000 feet high and 125 miles across. The eye of the hurricane is between 5 to 30 miles wide. Trade winds blowing east to west push the hurricane west. This includes areas like Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, or southeastern part of the U.S. The winds and low air pressure causes a mound of water to pile up near the mound of the eye which can cause a lot of damage if it hits

Show More
Related

  • Comparisons between Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Katrina

    1844 Words  | 4 Pages

    Tropical waters serve as the perfect breeding and growing place for a hurricane. Storms, such as Katrina, are able to develop because of the availability of water vapor over tropical oceans. This creates the ideal environment for the growth of a hurricane (Ahrens & Sampson, 2011).

    Read More

  • Betsy

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hurricane Betsy developed east of the Windward Islands. This means that Betsy occurred in the Atlantic Basin, which includes the North Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. Many hurricanes form in this area since it is near the equator and warm water, which is a requirement to form a hurricane is always available. In fact, hurricanes or tropical cyclones can only form if they meet four conditions. First, the temperature of ocean waters must be 82 degrees F or warmer in order. Moreover, low air pressure is needed. Furthermore, you need tropical winds located near the equator. Lastly, you need moist ocean air. The most important part is the warm air since it serves as energy for the storm. The air then rises into the low pressure are and cold air replaces it; this is what then produces what is called a disturbance, which is an area of heavy rainfall, thunder clouds and powerful winds. From here a hurricane can only get stronger and its wind speed is measured and depending on how powerful the storm is it is then assigned into one of five categories.

    Read More

  • The Galveston Hurricane

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    The birth of a hurricane requires at least three conditions. First, the ocean waters must be warm enough at the surface to put enough heat and moisture into the overlying atmosphere to provide the potential fuel for the thermodynamic engine that a hurricane becomes. Second, atmospheric moisture from seawater evaporation must combine with that heat and energy to form the powerful engine needed to propel a hurricane. Third, a wind pattern must be near the ocean surface to spirals air inward. At least 3 conditions must be present for a hurricane to emerge. Water, heat, and wind are the three main factors that have to be in perfect conditions to start a hurricane. (The Weather Channel, 2008)

    Read More

  • Hurricane Floyd

    1256 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hurricanes form over the ocean. Easterly waves, what hurricanes develop from, are long, narrow regions of low pressure which occur in ocean winds called trade winds. At first, these easterly waves can grow into something called, a tropical depression. A tropical depression occurs when winds are up to 31 mph. Then tropical depressions can be upgraded into a tropical storm if the winds reach speeds of 74 mph or less. Then finally a the storm can be bumped up into a hurricane if the winds reach 75 mph.

    Read More

  • The Natural Causes Of Hurricane Katrina

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hurricanes are born over the warm waters of tropical oceans and are formed by a low-pressure system caused by the heating of water. The heat causes the air to rise and form lower pressures in a feedback loop, making the hurricane stronger. Heavy rain results from a condensation of water and strong winds develop from warm air rushing to the eye of the hurricane. Essentially, greater storms and winds occur when the hurricane feeds of the rising temperature of the water. In addition, researchers studied disturbances and intense thunderstorms in the atmosphere over Western Africa and believe they are partly to blame for extreme hurricanes affecting the United States and Canada. While these are all the main ingredients of a perfectly natural process, they were not the primary causes of the damage done by Hurricane

    Read More

  • Unit 3 Hurricane Research Paper

    203 Words  | 1 Pages

    A hurricane is a large swirling storm with strong winds. Hurricanes can blow up to 74 miles per hour or higher. The storms form over warm ocean water and sometimes strike land. According to the Simpson Hurricane scale, a category one hurricane has 74 to 95 mile an hour wind speed which is faster than a cheetah. A category three hurricane has 111 to 129 mile an hour wind speeds, which is the speed of pro tennis players serving speed. Lastly, a category five hurricane contains speeds up to 157 miles an hour, close to the speed of some high velocity trains. When a hurricane reaches land, it pushes a wall of ocean water ashore, this wall of ocean water is called a storm surge. The eye of the hurricane is the “hole” at the center of the storm. The

    Read More

  • Does Global Warming Effect Hurricane Frequency and Intensity?

    1478 Words  | 3 Pages

    Firstly hurricanes, otherwise known as tropical-cyclones, are formed over warm ocean waters of at least 26.5ºC through depths of at least 45m. There must also be a high Coriolis Effect present such as there is just north and south of the equator. (Moran, 2011) Hurricanes begin as smaller storms called tropical disturbances, if the storm experiences a sufficient loss in surface air pressure coinciding with a strengthening sustained wind the storm is then upgraded to a tropical depression. As the storm continues to intensify and the wind speeds reach 63km/h it then becomes a tropical storm and is finally given a name. When the storm continues to grow in strength and reaches wind speeds of 119km/h it then becomes a hurricane. (Moran,2011)

    Read More

  • Inside Hurricanes By Mary Kay Carson

    628 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hurricanes are “long-lasting ocean storms with spinning clouds full of rain and wind. They are the largest storms on the planet. Hurricane winds can blow buildings over, topple trees, and toss boats into the air.” according to Inside Hurricanes by Mary Kay Carson. According to Weather Wiz Kids “each hurricane usually lasts for over a week, moving 10-20 miles per hour over the open ocean.” Hurricanes “don’t happen in an instant, like a tornado or a lighting strike. A storm only grows into a hurricane if all the right ingredients come together,” according to Mary Kay Carson the author of Inside Hurricanes. Hurricanes need heat and the correct kinds of winds to grow and create a powerful storm. According to Inside Hurricanes by Mary Kay Carson, in a hurricane there is an “eye, eyewall, rainbands, sinking cool air, and rising warm air. The eye of a hurricane is usually between 20-40 miles across and has no clouds overhead.

    Read More

  • Climate Weather And Meteorology Essay

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    An ordinary-single cell is the most common, but multicell and supercells are responsible for the severe thunderstorms. The ordinary single-cell thunderstorms are short lived with three stages: the cumulus, the mature, and the dissipating stages. In the last stage, it eliminates the upward supply of high humidity air needed to maintain a thunderstorm. On the other hand, multicell storms are composed of severe individual single-cell storms that can make storms last for several hours. There is dense, cold air of the downdraft that forms the gust front which forms new cells. Then, groups of these thunderstorms tend to join into larger systems referred to as mesoscale convective

    Read More

  • Similarities And Differences Between Sandy And Hurricane Katrina

    589 Words  | 2 Pages

    low air pressure. Also there needs to be several atmospheric factors present for the storm to have

    Read More

  • hurricanes

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the hurricane the mixture of the water and winds can be extremely damaging. The winds are extremely dangerous and usually don’t go faster than about 75 miles per hour but have been documented to go as fast as 85 miles per hour. Due to the fact that hurricanes need water to survive they cannot go too far on land, but that does not stop them from causing billions of dollars in damages. Hurricanes are so dangerous that they were listed number 1 on the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Hazard and Disasters list.

    Read More

  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hurricanes begin as tropical disturbances in warm ocean waters with temperatures of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit. These low pressure systems are served by energy from the warm seas. If a storm reaches wind speeds of 38 miles an hour, it is known as a tropical depression. A tropical depression becomes a tropical storm, and is given a name, when its sustained wind speeds top 39 miles an hour. When a storm’s sustained wind speeds reach 74 miles an hour, it becomes a hurricane and earns a category rating of 1 to 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

    Read More

  • A Short Overview Of Hurricanes

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    For a hurricane to form, the ocean temperature must be warmer than twenty-six degrees Celsius, or eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Also, the air near the oceans surface must be filled with moisture. The seawater that is warmed by the heat from the sun evaporates to form vast storm clouds. As the warm air rises, the cooler air replaces it thus creating a wind. The rotation of the earth bends the wind inward causing it to rotate and spiral upward with a great amount of force. Around the Equator, the spin is the fastest. There, it can be faster than six hundred miles per hour.

    Read More

  • Recovering From a Natural Disaster

    1316 Words  | 3 Pages

    A Hurricane is a tropical storm with winds more than 74 miles per hour (mph). Hurricane wind damage is influenced by the duration and change of wind direction, amount of rainfall and how well land structures are build. Hurricanes are measure in five different categories and each category can produce different degree of damages. Category One Hurricane has sustained winds 74-95 mph. Category Two Hurricane has sustained winds of 96-110 mph with very strong winds that can produce widespread damage and extensive damage to power lines. Category Three Hurricane has sustained winds of 111-130 mph that will cause extensive damage with near total power loss that could last several days to weeks. Category Four Hurricane has sustained winds of 131-155 with extremely dangerous winds causing devastating damage. Finally, a category five hurricane has sustained winds greater than 155 mph. This is a catastrophic damage storm. Category five can have severe injury or death due to wind blown debris. A Category five hurricane can produce extensive power outages that will last for weeks to perhaps months. Therefor...

    Read More

  • Natural Disasters- Hurricanes

    1668 Words  | 4 Pages

    A hurricane is a type of natural disaster that can be harmful and destructive to anything in its way. Every year five to six hurricanes are formed, damaging and destroying people’s homes, landmarks, and anything in its path (“Hurricane”). Before a hurricane is developed it is known as a tropical storm. To be a tropical storm wind speed must be at least thirty eight miles per hour (“Hurricane”). Once wind speeds reaches seventy four miles an hour it can then be classified as hurricane (“Hurricane”). Large scale storms, like hurricanes have a variety of ways to measure the sev...

    Read More

More about How Does Climate Change Affect Hurricanes

Open Document