Hurricanes and typhoons
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2016
Abstract
Tropical cyclones represent one of nature’s most destructive forces and the effects of climate variability and continued coastal development are likely to exacerbate these impacts. Disasters and disaster recovery will depend heavily on improved predictions over short time intervals for evacuation decision-making and over many years for community planning and development of resilient coastal areas for natural and urban landscapes (Brantley et al., 2014; Sealza and Sealza, 2014). These storms are fundamentally a heat engine taking energy from the sea via the latent heat of evaporation and depositing the energy at mid-tropospheric levels via condensation. This engine converts the heat energy directly into mechanical energy (winds, waves and currents). Potential positive feedbacks, related to the dependence of evaporation rates on wind speed and storm intensity and mid-tropospheric heating rates, exist in this system. Therefore, tropical cyclones will continued to strengthen in ocean areas with high water temperatures, minimal vertical shear, and moist air aloft until the mechanical and heat energy losses equal the heat sources.
Publication Title
Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series
Volume
Part 2
First Page
329
Last Page
334
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1007/978-94-007-6644-0_180-1
ISSN
13884360
E-ISSN
1871756X
Citation Information
Resio, & Kay, S. (2016). Hurricanes and Typhoons. In Encyclopedia of Marine Geosciences (pp. 329–334). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6238-1_180