Tag: tropical cyclones

Breaking New Ground in Hurricane Modeling

Researchers create first model for hurricane hazard assessment that is both open source and capable of accounting for climate change. Climate scientists at Columbia University have developed a new, global hurricane model for estimating the long-term hazard of rare, high impact storms under different climate scenarios. The model uses a novel approach to efficiently simulate […]

IRI@AGU: Improving Long-Range Tropical Cyclone Forecasts

Chia-Ying Lee is an associate research scientist at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. She studies tropical cyclones, including their structure and the intensity evolution, as well as their prediction at the weather, sub-seasonal scales, and long-term risk assessment. At the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union next week, Lee will present her work on understanding the factors […]

Hurricane Harvey and Climate Change

After rapidly scaling up in strength, Hurricane Harvey has dumped an ‘unprecedented’ amount of rainfall onto Houston, Texas. Lives have been lost, homes flooded, and officials estimate the damages may make this one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history. But inevitably, Americans want to know just how ‘natural’ this disaster really was, and what role climate change […]

How did Hurricane Harvey Become so Powerful, so Quickly?

By Sarah Fecht This post originally appeared on the Earth Institute’s State of the Planet. On Thursday, Harvey was a tropical storm. By the next day it was a Category 2 hurricane, and it strengthened to a Category 4 before hitting southeastern Texas on Friday night. That makes it the strongest tropical cyclone to strike the mainland United States […]

Rapid intensification’s key role in tropical cyclone risk

In studying climate and tropical cyclones, researchers find a weather phenomenon at play In October 2015, Hurricane Patricia became the strongest storm ever measured by the National Hurricane Center. But what really worried authorities was the speed at which Patricia amassed her strength. The storm’s sustained winds increased from 85 miles per hour to 200 […]

Behind the Expected Quiet 2015 Hurricane Season

By Chia-Ying Lee, IRI Postdoctoral Research Scientist This post originally appeared in the Earth Institute’s State of the Planet Blog. It does not feel like summer in New York City as I write, but today (a cool, rainy June 1) is the official start day for the Atlantic hurricane season, which will last until November 30. What […]