You’ve probably seen the satellite images that show a hurricane developing: thick white clouds clumping together, arms spinning around a central eye as it heads for the coast.
After decades of research, meteorologists still have questions about how hurricanes develop. Now, Florida State University researchers have found that even the smallest changes in atmospheric conditions could trigger a hurricane, information that will help scientists understand the processes that lead to these devastating storms.
“The whole motivation for this paper was that we still don’t have that universal theoretical understanding of exactly how tropical cyclones form, and to really be able to forecast that storm-by-storm, it would help us to have that more solidly taken care of,” said Jacob Carstens, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science.
The research by Carstens and Assistant Professor Allison Wing has been published in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems.
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Image via Florida State University
