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Sci 209 Week 4 Paper

Decent Essays

Oceans, Hurricanes, and the Climate
SCI 209
Your Name
March 01, 2010

Introduction
Natural disasters occurring from the climate change could be on the rise. Global warming has been rumored to be causing more hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, heavier monsoonal rains that cause major flooding, mud slides, and other disasters worldwide. A tropical cyclone, also referred to as hurricanes, typhoons, or cyclones, depending on where in the world the cyclone is occurring, are one of the world’s grandest shows of energy provided by nature. Hurricanes are large, swirling, low pressure storms that have sustained winds of over 74 miles an hour and are formed over warm ocean waters (NASA, n.d.). The purpose of this paper is to discuss hurricanes …show more content…

Beta drift is caused by the Coriolis Effect and tends to have more effect on the storm as it grows due to the increased effect at higher latitudes. Other factors such as high pressure ridges, wind shear, other hurricanes, land masses, and the jet stream also have a steering effect on hurricanes. With all the different factors of propagation, the path a hurricane will take is very difficult to calculate.
Ocean Currents and Hurricanes Ocean currents effect hurricanes far more than hurricanes effect ocean currents. Surface ocean currents carry the warm waters to the hurricane breeding areas and fuel the storms with warm currents along their paths. Cold water currents also play a major role in robbing the storms of one of their sources of fuel when hurricanes pass over the colder currents, like the ones along the eastern U.S. border. Hurricanes with their strong winds cause huge waves, mix warm surface waters and their currents, with the deeper cooler water. Not much is known about what happens to that warmer water once it has been sunk into the depths of the ocean but some suggest that the heat is transported towards the poles via ocean currents (Bettex, n.d.). The Gulf of Mexico’s loop current creates large warm water eddies in the gulf and is likely intensifying hurricanes that pass over them. These eddies are blamed for fueling some of the worst storms ever, like Katrina and Rita ("Ocean Motion and Surface Events", n.d.).
Hurricanes, Storm

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