Atmospheric waves trapped close to the equator can be blamed for the formation of some of the world's most devastating tropical storms, new research has found.
Earth Sciences
21 hours ago
0
84
Tropical forests are crucial for sucking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But they're also subject to intense storms that can cause "windthrow"—the uprooting or breaking of trees. These downed trees decompose, potentially ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 17, 2023
0
25
Last month was another unusually warm month, as the planet saw its ninth-warmest November on record.
Environment
Dec 15, 2022
0
5
High above the northern tropical countries of Africa, in warmer months, waves of low pressure can form in the atmosphere and blow westward toward the Atlantic. When these African easterly waves reach the ocean, tropical cyclones—including ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 7, 2022
0
13
A pair of researchers at Fudan University's Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and CMA-FDU Joint Laboratory of Marine Meteorology, working with one colleague from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ...
A subtropical storm is what's known to forecasters as a "hybrid" storm, a meteorological mashup of a tropical and "extratropical" storm.
Earth Sciences
Nov 10, 2022
0
2
Three days after Hurricane Fiona struck Puerto Rico in mid-September, the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat advisory, warning that the heat index—which incorporates humidity to calculate perceived temperature—could ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 8, 2022
0
143
Tropical Storm Lisa slowed on Thursday after making landfall in Belize, causing flooding and plunging parts of the country into darkness as it churned westwards toward Mexico.
Environment
Nov 3, 2022
0
8
With hundreds of Floridians remaining in shelters weeks after Hurricane Ian devastated swathes of the Sunshine state, the question many residents face is whether to rebuild—or retreat.
Environment
Oct 25, 2022
0
7
As major hurricanes slam the nation year after year, claiming dozens of lives and costing billions in damages, the impact of climate change on these natural events comes up often in political speeches and casual conversations.
Earth Sciences
Oct 14, 2022
9
29
A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a large low-pressure center and numerous thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain. Tropical cyclones feed on heat released when moist air rises, resulting in condensation of water vapor contained in the moist air. They are fueled by a different heat mechanism than other cyclonic windstorms such as nor'easters, European windstorms, and polar lows, leading to their classification as "warm core" storm systems. Tropical cyclones originate in the doldrums near the equator, about 10° away from it.
The term "tropical" refers to both the geographic origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively in tropical regions of the globe, and their formation in maritime tropical air masses. The term "cyclone" refers to such storms' cyclonic nature, with counterclockwise rotation in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise rotation in the Southern Hemisphere. Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane, typhoon, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone.
While tropical cyclones can produce extremely powerful winds and torrential rain, they are also able to produce high waves and damaging storm surge as well as spawning tornadoes. They develop over large bodies of warm water, and lose their strength if they move over land. This is why coastal regions can receive significant damage from a tropical cyclone, while inland regions are relatively safe from receiving strong winds. Heavy rains, however, can produce significant flooding inland, and storm surges can produce extensive coastal flooding up to 40 kilometres (25 mi) from the coastline. Although their effects on human populations can be devastating, tropical cyclones can also relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat and energy away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes, which makes them an important part of the global atmospheric circulation mechanism. As a result, tropical cyclones help to maintain equilibrium in the Earth's troposphere, and to maintain a relatively stable and warm temperature worldwide.
Many tropical cyclones develop when the atmospheric conditions around a weak disturbance in the atmosphere are favorable. The background environment is modulated by climatological cycles and patterns such as the Madden-Julian oscillation, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Mode. Others form when other types of cyclones acquire tropical characteristics. Tropical systems are then moved by steering winds in the troposphere; if the conditions remain favorable, the tropical disturbance intensifies, and can even develop an eye. On the other end of the spectrum, if the conditions around the system deteriorate or the tropical cyclone makes landfall, the system weakens and eventually dissipates. It is not possible to artificially induce the dissipation of these systems with current technology.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
