Case in Point Analysis

Case in Point

SCI362

August 17,2011

Case in Point Analysis

In August 2005, one devastating storms hit the United States that had caused severe damage to the city of New Orleans, along with other coastal cities and towns in the region. In this paper the subject will identify any unintended consequences of humankind's activities that could have led to the hurricane, it will also go into describing how technological activities are improving the existing situation, also how a proper application of the scientific method could have help the problem. Then it will address and alternative solutions.

I. Consequences of Humankind's Activities

Typically hurricanes are most common during the summer and autumn months when the ocean temperatures are warm. These giant, rotating tropical storms with winds of at least 119km per hour have the most powerful wind velocities greater than 250km per hour. These winds will continue to form, and pick up moisture over the warm surface waters and start to spin as a result of the Earth's rotation( Raven, Berg, & Hassenzahl, 2010). Because hurricanes are a natural force, there is not any humankind activities that take place, in order for the hurricanes to occur. However, there is technology that can detect a hurricane evolving, how big the hurricane is, and where the location it is traveling.

II. Improving the Existing Situation

With so many destructive hurricanes each year scientists are beginning the first steps toward understanding what happens when a hurricane swirls ashore; how the winds change and become more destructive as the plow inland and how the storm's structure changes upon leaving the ocean, the land that can demise of flooding rain that can jeopardize even those who take cover. Mike Black, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division(NOAA ), believed that a hurricane's wind was at its strongest on land compared to at sea, but in Isidore that theory was proven false; the winds are much higher at sea before the hurricane hits the land. Other instruments from NOAA such as the WP-3D are a hurricane hunter plane which indicates the hurricanes winds onshore and off shore. There are also other instruments that can clock the hurricanes into categories one to five, where five is the highest category (Cappella, 2005). Another instrument is aboard a P-3 airplane which will scan the ocean for wave action and continual determines wind speeds over large areas at ground level. There are other programs that analyze and interpret the wind data into minutes that gives forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami a definite live look into