Destruction and fatalities from recent tornado outbreaks in North America have raised considerable concerns regarding their climatic and geographic variability. However, regional characterization of tornado activity in relation to large-scale climatic processes remains highly uncertain. Here, a novel Bayesian hierarchical framework is developed for elucidating the spatiotemporal variability of ...

introduction atmospheric processes and their interactions with ground surface responsible for formation and evolution of a heavy dust storm are important for identifying dust transport pathways. spatial and temporal distribution of middle eastern dust for a severe dust event during 4-8 july 2009 was analyzed by weather research and forecasting with chemistry (wrf/chem) model simulations, in-sit...

Hurricanes are causing increasing damage to many coastal regions worldwide1,2. O shore wind turbines can provide substantial clean electricity year-round, but can they alsomitigate hurricane damage while avoiding damage to themselves? This study uses an advanced climate–weather computer model that correctly treats the energy extraction of wind turbines3,4 to examine this question. It finds that...

We investigate tropical cyclone wind and storm surge damage reduction for five areas along the Miami-Dade County coastline either by hardening buildings or by the hypothetical application of wind-wave pumps to modify storms. We calculate surge height and wind speed as functions of return period and sea surface temperature reduction by wind-wave pumps. We then estimate costs and economic losses ...

In many arid and semiarid regions, saline playas represent a significant source of unconsolidated sediments available for aeolian transport, and severe saline dust storms occur frequently due to human disturbance. In this study, saline dust storms are reviewed systematically from the aspects of concept, general characteristics, conditions of occurrence, distribution and ecological impact. Our r...

The Atchafalaya inner continental shelf, located along the north-central Gulf of Mexico offshore of Louisiana, is an area of rapid mud accumulation associated with the progradation of a subaqueous delta originating from this Mississippi River distributary. In September–October 2002, this region was impacted by two tropical cyclones (Tropical Storm Isidore and Hurricane Lili) separated by only 7...

[1] Probability distribution and power density of wind speed over global oceans are computed from eight years of QuikSCAT measurements. They describe the variation and higher moments of wind speed that are critical in relating the non-linear effects of wind on electric power generation capability, shipping hazard, and air-sea exchanges in heat, water, and greenhouse gases. The power density dis...

The attributes and remaining critical deficiencies of current methods for surface wind specification that are typically applied to hindcast tropical cyclone generated storm surges are reviewed. Several wind fields developed for Hurricane Katrina (2005) in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico are applied with the ADCIRC hydrodynamic model to explore the sensitivity of predictions of coastal surges to wind fi...

The ionospheric storm evolution process was monitored during the 22 September 1999 magnetic storm over the Australian eastern region, through measurements of the ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) from seven Global Positioning Systems (GPS) stations. The spatial and temporal variations of the ionosphere were analysed as a time series of TEC maps. Results of our analysis show that the main...

Data from the Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere (CASA) Integrated Project I (IP1) network of polarimetric X-band radars are used to observe a convective storm. A fuzzy logic hydrometeor identification algorithm is employed to study microphysical processes. Dual-Doppler techniques are used to analyze the 3D wind field. The scanning strategy, sensitivity, and low-level scanning foc...