GG231 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Tropical Cyclone, Landfall, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
Document Summary
Tropical cyclone: a large thunderstorm complex rotating around an area of low pressure over warm water in the tropics or sub strupics. Hurricane: tropical cyclone with sustained winds of at least 118 km/h. Typhoons in the western north pacific ocean, south china sea. Tropical cyclones: south pacific and southern indian ocean. The storm typically weakens when it reaches land as there is little energy from the water to maintain the system. Changes in hurricanes: a possible pattern has been a perceived increase in larger hurricanes. There is continued debate whether this is linked to climate change or just lack of long-term data to fully understand the real trends in activity. We will consider this further in the lesson on climate. Change: one certainty has been the greater activity and strength of storms during the past two hurricane seasons. There have been many deaths and some of the most expensive disasters to date.
