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Kerry Emanuel answers a few questions about this month's
new hot paper in the field of Geosciences.
From
•>>September 2006
Field:
Geosciences
Article Title: Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years
Authors: Emanuel, K
Journal: NATURE
Volume: 436
Issue: 7051
Page: 686-688
Year: AUG 4 2005
* MIT, Program Atmospheres Oceans & Climate, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
* MIT, Program Atmospheres Oceans & Climate, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA.
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 Why
do you think your paper is highly cited?
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“I have been studying hurricanes for 20 years and developed the existing theory relating hurricanes to climate.”
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Mostly because, by co-incidence, it appeared a few weeks before
Katrina, but also because it was the first to attribute observed
changes in tropical cyclone activity to global climate change.
Does
it describe a new discovery, methodology, or synthesis of knowledge?
It develops a new metric for tropical cyclone activity, the power
dissipation index, which is a measure of the total amount of energy
generated by hurricanes over their lifetimes.
Could
you summarize the significance of your paper in layman’s terms?
The paper shows, for the first time, that hurricanes are
responding to global warming.
How
did you become involved in this research, and were there obstacles
along the way?
I have been studying hurricanes for 20 years and developed the
existing theory relating hurricanes to climate. I decided to look at
the observations for signs that hurricanes respond to climate
change.
Are
there any social or political implications for your research?
Yes. Hurricanes are the most destructive and lethal natural
phenomenon affecting the U.S. and many other countries, and if they
are being made worse by human-induced climate change, there are
potentially large implications for policy.
Kerry A. Emanuel, Ph.D.
Professor of Meteorology
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, & Planetary Sciences
MIT
Cambridge, MA, USA
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ESI Special Topics,
September 2006
Citing URL - http://www.esi-topics.com/nhp/2006/september-06-KerryEmanuel.html
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