"Toward a General Theory of Hurricanes"

Paper Summary:

This paper summarizes the article written by Prof. Kerry A. A. "Toward a General Theory of Hurricanes" which appeared in the July, 1988 edition of "American Scientist" and which calls for the placement of the physics of hurricanes in a more general context. The paper shows that Emanuel's reasoning behind this is that it would allow scientists to predict how the frequency and intensity of these storms would respond to changes in climate and allow scientists to relate hurricanes to seemingly different phenomena such as oceanic storms of the polar night and dust devils.

From the Paper:

"The question of why hurricanes are so rare is considered next, for it is often known that there are several empirical condition that are necessary but not sufficient for the formation of hurricanes. There is some limitation which prevents these from being sufficient in most cases, and Emanuel considers a number of numerical simulations which may give a clue. He says there is a need for a strong starting disturbance, and this is consistent with the observation that real hurricanes never start spontaneously. The model of Rotunno and Emanuel is asymmetric and does not allow variations of the explicitly calculated fields around circles centered at the storm center. To start a hurricane, it was necessary to impose on the basic state a weak vortex which decays upward from the surface. This is the disturbance which starts the process toward a hurricane."

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