Mister Holland works for the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He says the study provided muscular testify that climate change is a major influence on the increasing number of Atlantic hurricanes.
VOICE ONE:
However, not everyone agrees that weather change is causing more severe ocean storms. Jeffrey Halverson is a hurricane expert at the University of Maryland. He says there is probably a interlock to weather change merely it has been tough to detect.
Christopher Landsea is with the National Hurricane Center. He says he believes climate change has a small inspire on hurricanes. He argues that stronger storms are the result of changes in climate and normal weather wheels. But other experts say wind speeds ambition amplify in the strongest storms for the next several years.
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VOICE TWO:
This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written along Shelley Gollust. Our maker was Brianna Blake. I'm Barbara Klein.
VOICE ONE:
And I'm Bob Doughty. Listen repeatedly next week for more news approximately science in Special English on the Voice of America.
VOICE ONE:
This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I'm Bob Doughty.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Barbara Klein. Our subject today: severe ocean tempests.
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VOICE ONE:
September is ordinarily the worst month for hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. At least ten named storms have formed there this year. The hurricane season continues until the end of November.
The aggregate number of major storms this year has been above average. There were three major hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. The latest hurricane to strike land was called Hurricane Ike. It was a huge storm, stretching out across a thousand kilometers when it struck the southern coast of the United States last month.
By Shelley Gollust
2008-10-6
Hurricane Ike caused major flooding and devastated thousands of homes. It also left millions of people without power in Texas. The storm annihilated by least thirty people in nine states.
Flooding in Miragoane, Haiti,abercrombie and fitch, later hurricanes Gustav and IkeThe position was even aggravate in the country of Haiti, which has been severely broke by several storms this year.
VOICE TWO:
About ninety ocean storms form each year around the earth. These powerful storms are called hurricanes when they form in the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern Pacific Ocean. They are called typhoons in the northwestern Pacific, and cyclones when they develop in the Indian Ocean. Severe ocean storms in the northern half of the world generally develop in late summer or early autumn near the equator.
Storms tin outcome while the ventilation temperature in 1 place is differ from that of another. Warmer air rises and cooler air falls. These movements create a inconsistency in the oppression of the atmosphere. If the pressure alterations over a large district, winds start to blow in a big surround. High-pressure air is dragged toward a low-pressure heart.
VOICE ONE:
Severe ocean storms occur less constantly in the southern hemisphere. There, the season of greatest activity is between December and March. South of the equator, the winds flow in the same intention as the hands above a clock. North of the equator,abercrombie france, they fdefect in ... the inverse direction.
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VOICE TWO:
Storms can get stronger for they migrate over warm ocean waters. The strongest, fastest winds of a hurricane are found in the eyewall. This is the area that circles the center, or eye,ralph lauren pas cher, of the storm. The eye itself is calm by approximation, with light winds and clear skies.
Wind speeds in severe ocean storms can approach more than two hundred fifty kilometers an hour. Up to fifty centimeters of rain can fall. Some storms have produced more than one hundred fifty centimeters of rain.
These storms also cause tall waves and ocean surges. A surge is a perennial movement of water that may reach six meters or more. The water strikes low coastal areas. Surges are usually responsible for about ninety percent of entire deaths from ocean storms.
VOICE ONE:
Scientists use microcomputer programs to show where a storm might work. The procedures join information such as temperatures, air speed, atmospheric pressure and the amount of water in the atmosphere.
Scientists collect the information with satellites, weather balloons and devices floating in the world's oceans. They also collect information from ships and tourist flights and from airplanes that fly in and around storms. The troops drop instruments on parachutes to record temperature,abercrombie, pressure,louboutin, wind speed and other conditions.
VOICE TWO:
The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale is a direction to rate storms based on wind speed. It provides an mind of the amount of coastal flooding and property damage that might be expected.
The scale is divided into five groups. A category one storm has winds of about one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty kilometers an hour. It can damage trees and lightweight buildings. It can also cause flooding.
Wind speeds in a category two hurricane can reach near to one hundred eighty kilometers an hour. These storms are often powerful enough to wreck skylights or blow a protective covering off a house. Winds between about one hundred eighty and two hundred fifty kilometers an hour represent categories 3 and four. Anything even more powerful is a category five hurricane.
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VOICE ONE:
The major hurricanes that fashioned in the Atlantic Ocean this year were called Gustav, Hanna and Ike. How did they get these names?
An Australian scientist began to call storms by women's names before the end of the nineteenth century. During World War Two, scientists called storms by the names of their wives or girlfriends.
The weather service in the United States started to use women's names for storms in nineteen fifty-three. In nineteen seventy-nine,christian louboutin, it began to use men's names, too. Scientists resolve on lists of names years in advance. They coincide on them at conferences of the World Meteorological Organization.
VOICE TWO:
Naming storms is chapter of the job of the National Hurricane Center in Florida. Storms get a name when they reach a wind speed of sixty-two kilometers an hour,ralph lauren, even now they never develop into hurricanes. The first name used in a storm season begins with the letter A, the second with B and so on. The same account of names is not used again for at least six years. And different lists are used for different parts of the world.
VOICE ONE:
Three years antecedent,abercrombie, Greek letters had to be accustomed as the premier period to appoint storms in the Atlantic. That was the blueprint -- to cry storms Alpha, Beta and so on -- whether there were ever more than twenty-one named storms in a season. In truth, there were twenty-eight. The two thousand five Atlantic hurricane season was the 1st on record with fifteen hurricanes. Four hurricanes reached category five strength -- also a premier.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says it was the first season with four major hurricanes to buffet the United States. The most destructive was Katrina. More than one thousand eight hundred people were killed forward the Gulf of Mexico coast.
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VOICE TWO:
Debate continues about the efficacy of rising temperatures in Earth's atmosphere on hurricanes. A fashionable report says ocean storms are growing in strength and climate might be to reprove. Scientists from Florida State University and the University of Wisconsin reported their findings final month in Nature journal.
The scientists mention the maximum powerful ocean storms are agreeable more intense. They found that the strongest typhoons and typhoons have chance even stronger over the elapse twenty-five years.
The guide author of the report was James Elsner of Florida State University. He says there is a good chance of more category four and five hurricanes in the hereafter because ocean temperatures are expected to proceed rising.
VOICE ONE:
The scientists studied climate satellite message from nineteen eighty-one through two thousand 6. During the phase, ocean surface temperatures increased by one average of a third of a degree Celsius.
The scientists found that this change has oiled the increase in hurricane intensity. They also found that the highest wind speeds of the strongest storms averaged two hundred fifty-three kilometers an hour in two thousand six. This is an increase from two hundred twenty-five kilometers an hour in nineteen eighty-one. The increases in intensity were greatest in the Atlantic Ocean.
VOICE TWO:
Last year, other scientists found that the number of Atlantic hurricanes increased one hundred percentage over the past centenary. Greg Holland and Peter Webster studied records of major storms in the North Atlantic.
