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4 May 2012
Building resilience as weather worsens
Two adjacent, brand-new houses – one was torn from its foundation by winds, the other stood strong. A mere $3,000 in building costs made the difference, including a simple wind-resistant measure: a front door that stays shut in a storm because it’s built to open outward rather than inward.
21 February 2012
Barren marsh reveals plant-loss peril
When the plants go, the whole marsh falls apart. That’s what researchers have found in an innovative experiment in Belgium in which acres of reeds were literally mowed down, enabling the team to observe the consequences of extensive plant loss, which were more severe than expected.
7 October 2011
Study shows how warm swath of ocean may keep hurricanes at sea
One hurricane season might pummel the United States, while others bypass it completely – and now scientists have gained a new understanding about why. A team of oceanographers has identified how and why the varying size of a vast body of warm ocean water to the east and south of the U.S. can affect the number of hurricanes that make U.S. landfall. With this new insight, hurricane specialists may someday be able to better predict the likelihood that storms will make landfall during a given hurricane season.
2 September 2010
Should Mother Nature have to sign the Copenhagen Accord?
Carbon dioxide releases by hurricanes are significant, but offset by ocean cooling and phytoplankton growth A hurricane’s passage over warm ocean waters can drive a significant amount of carbon dioxide from the waves to the sky. The violent winds associated with a passing storm can dramatically increase the gas exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere, sending over a hundred million metric tons of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere …
14 July 2010
Cities may be magnets for disaster
Between the recent oil spill and Hurricane Katrina, it might seem that New Orleans is a magnet for disasters. A new study suggests that could be true – researchers have found that coastal cities could actually attract hurricanes. Johnny Chan and Andie Au-Yeung of the City University of Hong Kong wanted to improve forecasts of where hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, will go as they approach land. This “track forecasting” is …
12 July 2010
Hurricanes and Oil Will Mix
A hurricane as strong as Katrina may soon be on a collision course with the Gulf oil spill to create a “double-whammy of worst-case scenarios.” That’s the next potential nightmare looming ahead according to Heidi Cullen, one of several scientists who addressed a briefing on 30 June for Congressional staff. “The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is a worst-case scenario. And, I would say that the fear in the back of …
22 April 2010
Early hurricane forecasting: Don’t bet the farm on it
A few different groups of researchers and weather forecasters have put out predictions this month for Atlantic hurricanes, with most predicting more hurricanes than normal this summer. But are these predictions worth paying attention to? According to a 2007 paper in the World Meteorological Bulletin, such predictions in the past have almost no link with what actually happens. In fact, not until hurricane forecasters issued their July and August pronouncements …
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.