cyclones

Schematic diagram of secondary eyewall formation in upper-layer vertical wind shear versus lower-layer vertical wind shear. Credit: Yixuan He About 80% of intense tropical cyclones (TCs) possess concentric eyewalls—namely, the primary and secondary eyewalls. The intensity of the TC can vary considerably during secondary eyewall formation (SEF) and eyewall replacement, posing a great challenge to predicting TC intensity.…

Hurricane Patricia in 2015 was the most intense storm ever recorded in the Americas. But do we need a new scale? Credit: Scott Kelly/NASA/EPA When a tropical cyclone forms, people who live in its path anxiously monitor news of its direction—and strength. If a Category 5 storm with wind speeds of 250 kilometers per hour is heading for you, you prepare differently than you would for a Category 1 with wind speeds of 65 km/h.…

Astronomers have detected dynamic weather activities, such as massive cyclones, on the uninhabitable exoplanet WASP-121 b using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. This discovery, crucial for studying distant planetary weather, is enabled by detailed observations and advanced computational models. Credit: NASA, ESA, Quentin Changeat (ESA/STScI), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Hubble)Stormy weather on display on a “hot Jupiter”The Jupiter-sized planet WASP-121 b is no place to call home. For starters, it orbits very close to a star that is…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The number of people affected by tropical cyclones has nearly doubled from 2002 to 2019, reaching nearly 800 million people in 2019, according to a new study. While more people are affected by tropical cyclones in Asia than any other region, every affected world region saw an increase in the number of people exposed…

New research finds that accounting for the long-term impacts of tropical cyclones increases the global Social Cost of Carbon by over 20%. This elevation is driven by projected damage increases in major economies due to global warming. The study emphasizes that current estimates undervalue the real costs of climate change by overlooking these prolonged economic effects.Extreme events like tropical cyclones have immediate impacts, but also long-term implications for societies. A new study published in the journal Nature…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Extreme events like tropical cyclones have immediate impacts, but also long-term implications for societies. A new study published in the journal Nature Communications shows that accounting for the long-term impacts of these storms raises the global social cost of carbon by more than 20%, compared to the estimates currently used for policy evaluations. This increase is mainly driven by the…

Cyclone Idai raged along the southeast African coast in March 2019. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory People living on the in low-lying coastal areas will be at even greater risk from cyclones in the future. Natural ecosystems offer protection, but this protection has decreased in recent years and is expected to continue to decline. This is a finding of a model study by an international team of researchers led by ETH Zurich.…

Jane Baldwin, UC Irvine professor of Earth system science, says, "Tropical cyclones are some of the most impactful natural disasters on Earth. They pose huge risks to both human life and the built environment, so they have large economic costs associated with them and cause a lot of deaths. We need to be able to quantitatively explain their risk, meaning the probability of seeing different levels of losses." Credit: Steve Zylius / University of…

ENGINEERING Tall wood building is shaken, but not scathed A 10-story wooden building survived two severe, simulated earthquakes intact this week as scientists sought to show that wood can rival steel and concrete to safely support tall buildings. The structure is the tallest ever tested at the University of California, San Diego’s earthquake simulator. As part of a project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the machine subjected the building to the…

Observed decadal shifts and trends in global tropical cyclone activities from 1980-2021. Credit: Widana Arachchige Erandani Lakshani Tropical cyclone (TCs) are one of the most destructive types of weather event on Earth, damaging people's lives and their property, local infrastructure, and subsequently causing enormous economic losses. TCs are strong circular storms originating in the warm tropical oceans and are accompanied…