 Hi officially everybody. Thanks for joining us today Welcome to our weekly ask NCAR program. This is the third one that we've done and we're doing it every week So thanks for joining us today My name is Tiffany and I'm an education specialist at NCAR the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado And I'm here with my colleague James Done today, and he's a scientist at NCAR We're obviously both joining you from our homes just like all of you are in your homes But we're continuing to do our work and so we thought it would be fun to share some of the work with you every week So that's what we're doing each week We meet with someone who works at NCAR and we talk to them for a little while and learn about what they do in their jobs And then we take questions from you anything that you want to know about the work that they're doing One really cool part about working at NCAR is that there are so many different kinds of jobs that you can do So you can be a scientist, but you don't have to be you can also be an engineer Or you could be an electrician or a computer programmer or a machinist or a safety expert We have all those people working at NCAR and they're doing all their different jobs in order to support the scientific research That's happening there. So it's a really cool place so as I mentioned before we're going to use the chat box and We're going to leave microphones and videos off so that James can show us some cool stuff with his screen And throughout the program feel free to enter any questions that you have into the chat box I'll be keeping an eye on those and I'll share them with James either in little breaks throughout his presentation Or we might save some questions till the end too Um I think that that's about it if I see that some people have checked in and Said hello in the chat. We've got folks from Thornton and eerie and bolder and longmont and superior So thanks for joining us. And like I said, just use the chat box to enter any questions For james as we go and with that I think I'm gonna Turn it over to james and and let him tell us about all the cool stuff that he's doing Great. Well, yeah, thanks tiffany and hello everyone. Yeah, welcome. I'm glad you could all dial in It's good to be here and good to have this discussion with you about hurricanes So as Tiffany said, I'm a scientist here at the national center for atmospheric research in Boulder, Colorado And I my specialty is hurricanes. So I like to figure out how they work, you know, why they exist Where are they going and how are they changing in the future? So before I launch into that, I'd like to um, just give give you a bit of background about um, how I got got to where I am and um, how I um It came to be working at anchor Okay Well, the accents from the uk, uh, you might figure that out by now So I grew up in the uk and when I was about You know eight years old My dad was always watching the weather forecast on the tv and he used to find it so boring You know, I want to be watching cartoons or something But then when I got to about age 10, I was the one suddenly watching the weather forecast And I had to tell my sister to be quiet. She was always so noisy And from then on I was hooked So at school I um, studied maths and physics. That's what I loved And I carried on doing that at university and college Uh, and then I moved over to the u.s. So if you know anything about british weather, you'll know it's a bit boring But you guys have all the cool stuff. You have hurricanes tornadoes And we get drizzle and rain. So I had to come over here and experience some real weather And while I was over here, I met people at the national centre for atmospheric research and managed to get get a job there And I've been there ever since So I'd like to tell you a bit about what I'm finding about hurricanes and how they might be changing in the future So as Tiffany said, please type in any questions or comments into the chat box Okay, I'm going to start with this image of a hurricane making landfall on the florida panhandle This was hurricane michael two years ago in 2018 Some of you might remember it it brought devastating winds destructive storm surge And flooding rains to uh to florida and georgia and alabama Now you might notice something here and the hurricane has an eye. So this is quite a unique feature Um, so why does this eye exist? well, if you were to um drive into the centre of a hurricane I'm not suggesting you should but if you do you'll experience the winds becoming faster and faster And they would increase up to very high wind speeds and in fact they extend to infinity and nature doesn't like infinity So um, so it forms an eye to stabilize the whole storm structure So why do hurricanes exist? Well, and they get their energy from the warm Ocean to the wind of the ocean's warm and the the hurricane sucks out heat and it sucks out moisture And this is what fuels the hurricane So going back to the eye of a hurricane Here's a cool picture taken by a hurricane hunter aircraft So this aircraft actually flew into the middle of the hurricane and they do this quite often alarmingly They do it to take observations to to give us better forecasts of what the hurricane is doing and what it's going to do and where it's going to make landfall So this is a cool image inside the eye So you can see the sun shining down inside the middle of the storm and it's like a stadium So it's it's an area of relative quiet surrounded by the fury of these thunderstorms Hey james, I have a question about the eye Oh, yeah About how big I'm sorry. Did you say that already? I did not good question Yeah, so um it can vary so hurricane wilma in 2005 had the record smallest eye. It was just two miles wide But uh hurricanes out in the other ocean basins such as near japan and the philippines they can be huge It can be say 200 miles wide. So they really vary quite a lot. Wow The hurricanes are like breeds of dogs, you know, you get big ones small ones Angry ones calm ones. So They're very different. Yeah Okay, great. So so how are these hurricanes changing then? Well, we're gonna um look at that here So can anyone tell me what we're looking at in this stripey figure here? So here i'm showing some a visualization of some data So you can see there's lots of blue colors on the left and lots of red colors on the right and we gradually Transitioning from blue to red. So if you want to type in your responses, I'll give you a few seconds to Tell me what you think you're looking at here. It's a pretty cool figure when I when I tell you what it is Anybody have a guess Oh someone guessed ocean temperatures perhaps Oh, very nice or sea surface. I we had a couple guesses about yeah surface temperatures or another guess was sound waves Oh, good one. Yeah so I like Ocean temperatures. I should have actually plotted that Next time next time I do that, you know, look at look at ocean temperatures Um, but I'll tell you this is actually um the annual average temperature for the united states So it's over the over the land now And and the blue colors indicate cooler years and the warm colors indicate warmer years So you see lots of variability. There's it goes up and down as we go From 1985 to 2018 But on the whole there's a trend from blue to red So actually today we're living in a very warmer world than we have done in the past And this warmer air can hold more water vapor. So this is the gas phase of water Can hold more water vapor then cooler air and so the world around us today is on average warmer and more moist So how do we think hurricanes are going to change? Well, let's see Oh These these stripes have gone viral. You can do fun things with them even paint your car with them. So Send in your photos of painted cars Okay, the stripes on Yeah So this is how I investigate hurricanes that haven't happened yet because I want to know what they're going to look like in the future And I do that by running computer simulations of hurricanes So I I build my own computer simulation and that simulation contains all the processes in the climate system So they're depicted here. So I I input the mathematical equations for clouds for ocean currents for rainfall, snowfall, sunlight And it's amazing to me how they're just all based on maths and physics So we can we can code them up So I write them in a language that the computer simulation understands and feed it to the computer And then I um, I tile the earth's atmosphere You see all this gridded tile over the earth and each tile contains these mathematical equations And these equations tell us where the ocean currents are going They the currents can flow across tiles and we have clouds moving across the tiles And I can look forwards in time and this simulation tells me what the weather's going to be like tomorrow Five years from now even a hundred years from now Now there's a lot of tiles on the earth there So it takes a lot of computer power And so I'm lucky enough to work with one of the world's fastest supercomputers There's an image a bit here in the bottom right. So this is Enkar's supercomputer that we do Climate research on and this is actually based in Cheyenne Uh, so I I can log into this machine and run these computer simulations Okay, so so what are these simulations telling us about hurricanes? Well, we're seeing heavier rainfall Here's an image of Students going to school on this bus. I'm not sure I'd want to be on that on that bus This is in Houston just after Hurricane Harvey Do you remember Harvey was a world record breaker for the wettest storm in southern texas uh in the houston area A very devastating event it caused inund flooding and storm surge which stopped the runoff of the The freshwater flooding and they all just the sea levels just rose and rose So why do why do we think we're seeing heavier rainfall in the future? So what do we know about the atmosphere in the future that Attends to to rainfall. So does anyone have any ideas if you do? type them into the the chat box and we can discuss One idea that's been shared james is warmer weather and more evaporation Exactly, I like it. Yeah, so um, yeah, it's warmer and it demands more moisture from from the surface So it sucks out moisture from the ocean but also from the land So it drives out moisture from plants and vegetation and the soil surface So the atmosphere is more moist. So, yeah, there's more more water vapor to rain out. Good one What else are we seeing about future hurricanes? We were seeing stronger winds and a good example of that was hurricane michael that came ashore In the florida panhandle and here's the devastation Many of the homes completely destroyed apart from these homes here. These were actually built within the past five years or so They were built to be stronger and they can withstand stronger winds Um, but either way it's pretty devastating to this community So why do we think the winds are now stronger? Than they ever were and we think they're going to get even stronger in the future. What's going on here If you'd like to type any any ideas or if you know the answer type it into the chat box So i'm waiting to see if there are any other ideas one idea that came in is um A warmer ocean there's another a question saying are there stronger winds when there's warmer weather You guys know all the answers. That's great. Um Yeah, we not only is the atmosphere warming but the oceans are warming too and in fact The oceans have a loving memory. So once they start to warm it, it's very difficult to stop them and and because the oceans are A warmer there's more fuel for the hurricane and that fuel drives the circulation of the vortex of the hurricane So yes, um, there's a direct relationship there between warmer oceans and stronger hurricanes And in fact for this year the current ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are warmer than normal and so forecasts for this year are for um More frequent hurricanes and slightly stronger than average. So um, we'll have to see what happens this year Okay So finally we're also seeing higher storm surge So storm surge is the process whereby the um the strong strong winds of the hurricane it pushes the ocean around and actually builds the ocean up higher And then when the hurricane comes ashore that high water just spills out over the land and it can do so very rapidly And so we've always experienced storm surge But why are we seeing higher storm surge than ever before and why do we expect even higher storm surge in the future? So if any ideas and please type away So what do we know about sea level? Anybody want to share an idea? I'm seeing an idea about sea surface temperature anomalies by latitude And higher sea levels due to warming Um, and then somebody mentioned expanding water Does water expand? Yep, oh great. Like I say, you know all the answers That's great to many of the oceans are warming and a A warmer parcel of water occupies a greater volume than a cooler parcel And so yes, there's thermal expansion of the ocean. They're they're occupying a greater volume until they rise We also have melting of land ice so the the atmosphere is warmer It leads to more melting of ice caps That then flow the melt water flows into the ocean. So there's actually more water not only is it Taking up a greater volume, but there's more of it So sea levels are higher I think the Gulf of Mexico has risen about 30 inches in the past 50 years or so And is rapidly leading to land loss and the higher Sea level so whenever a hurricane comes along it is riding on top of a higher base sea level state than it used to great So now what what about the numbers of hurricanes? So do we do we expect more or fewer hurricanes in the future? um The answer i'll tell you is we just don't know you'd think we would know So this is one of these questions that have got me interested in in hurricane signs There must be an answer You'd think the you know, the oceans are warmer and they Expected to continue to warm so why doesn't this doesn't this lead to more hurricanes? Well, hurricanes are not just responding to the ocean temperatures But also what what else is happening in the environment environment So other weather systems can interfere with hurricanes and rip them apart And we don't know how these other weather systems are changing just yet. So there's lots of things to consider and here i'm just showing you an image of um historical hurricane tracks Coloured by wind speed just to give you an idea of where Where they prowl around over the global oceans mainly in the tropics, but they occasionally extend outwards and impact the u.s. Say japan china australia madagascar So yeah, there's lots of open questions in in hurricane signs In fact, one of the most intriguing questions that's been hanging around for about 30 years is Why are there about 50 hurricanes? every year in the world So why not five why not five thousand? We just don't know So i need you guys to become a scientist and help us all figure it out There's uh, there's lots to learn here Great. Well, I think that about wraps up what I wanted to discuss with you all today so and hopefully it's got you all thinking about hurricanes and um to please Carry on with the q&a and um, let's uh continue the discussion about hurricanes Great, so i've got a question to share with you and i'll invite Everybody else to keep entering your questions anything that you'd like to ask james about his work or about hurricanes And so right now james, um a question that came in about prediction And the idea that they're predicting a more active hurricane season this year And is there more that goes into that prediction than just Following kind of the warmer tents this summer Yeah, so um people have been making Seasonal hurricane forecasts for decades now and we use a variety of approaches So we have these computer simulations that I discussed so we can we can run those simulations And we use we usually run them hundreds of times under different scenarios to try and get a handle of them What's going on and then we also look at past years So we look at past years that are similar to this year and look at what Hurricanes occurred in in previous years and it's like a an analog year to what might happen this year um And all these techniques they incorporate hundreds of different processes So not just the warm oceans, but like I say they they do incorporate these other weather systems that could interfere they They incorporate even things like sea ice that can interfere with the whole global circulation um And that's why there's usually a large range in the prediction Great and and here's another I think this is going back to the your last slide about the 50 hurricanes why are there 50 hurricanes in general per year and somebody's asking is that Number of her the 50 number of hurricanes has that been an average that hasn't changed over time? Oh nice question. Yeah, um So hurricanes are actually a subset of a more generic term that we call tropical cyclones So tropical cyclones includes tropical storms hurricanes and major hurricanes And there's about 90 of those every year And 50 of those tropical storms become strengthened to become hurricanes So those two numbers have stayed about level But interestingly in the past 10 15 years it started to go down a little bit So we're trying to figure out if it's going to continue to go down Or if it might go back up to 50 and 90 again. So there's interesting things happening at the moment is the A dynamic and interesting time to figure out how the how the climate works Absolutely and one thing that I know, you know, many of us have heard is that we're not with the changes in global climate And warming temperatures in general. We're not necessarily looking at More hurricanes every season, but More intense ones. Is that accurate? Yes, that is definitely the case. So um on average, there'll be more intense But we don't know whether in addition, there'll be more overall or fewer overall But any hurricane that comes along on average will be more intense than it used to be I've got another question about your your background and your experience. Where did you go to school and and what did you study in school? Oh, I I was lucky enough to go to the University of Reading in the uk. So that's just um half an hour train ride outside of london And that's one of the best schools in the world to study atmospheric science. So I had a an interest in meteorology Maths and physics and And so it was a natural place for me to go. So I stayed there probably for too long And then and then I came out into the real world and got a job No, that was a good school to go to but um if anyone's interested in Like the good schools to go to in in the u.s. Then I can talk talk to them afterwards. Yeah Great and someone else asks if you yourself have been near or in a hurricane Oh, that's a good question And you'd think given that I talk so much about hurricanes that I would have experienced one, but now I never have And I'm not sure I would want to and sometimes you see weather forecasters on On the beat, you know on the weather channel that stood on the beach claiming to be in a hurricane But if they were actually in a hurricane, I don't think they'll be able to stand up on the beach so I'm not sure I don't want to experience one directly But uh But it's valuable to collect data on them, you know to improve the science. So I I work behind the scenes Well, and then that leads to another question that um that I got in And and you've described some of it how you how how you study hurricanes when you're living in Boulder, Colorado Where we don't have any hurricanes? It's a safe place to be yeah And we're low as researchers we're lucky we can log into any Any database or any any computer server or a super computer from anywhere in the world? And I can even log on to the super computer with my phone So it's it doesn't really matter where you are you have access to it to the data and data collection instrumentation and the the model the computer simulations so um Location is not the primary importance And and that um you mentioned the super computer that took me back to uh a question that we got earlier about What's the difference between a regular computer and a super computer? I mean it sounds cool Yeah, apart from it sounding cool. Well, it is pretty cool. Um The one housed in In Cheyenne, Wyoming If you look to look at it, it's it's in this huge room and it's like corridors of Machines stacked together. So it's it's effectively the same as 70 000 desktops all plugged together So you know how fast your desktop computer is and so if you connect 70 70 000 of them together then It's very fast. So we can we can do lots of great signs on it Great. Well, it's Just about time to wrap up. Um, but this is an interesting Question I think to finish with unless anybody else sends in any other ones. Do you have a favorite hurricane? Hmm. Well, that's a good one Um There was a very interesting one probably not many people have heard about it unless you were in it Humberto um The interesting thing about it was it It exploded in intensity right next to the coast. So no one really thought much about it It was just a very weak Area of thunderstorms in the Gulf of Mexico and then it really exploded to be a hurricane right before landfall on the Texas coast Um, and it caught everyone by surprise and so that's that's an interesting question You know, are we going to experience more of these exploding hurricanes right at the coast? There are very challenged for emergency managers to deal with these kind of things. So this is why we need to Improve our forecasts and improve our understanding of what's going on Absolutely Okay, well, it looks like our questions have slowed and that's probably pretty good timing that's been about 25 minutes So I would just like to say thank you James for joining us today and sharing some of your work and Like to say thanks to everybody for for joining us and asking your interesting questions um I am going to put in the chat real quick that We do like I mentioned at the beginning we do an ask NCAR like this every week now And next week it'll be on wednesday as well and i'm putting Into the chat right now The link to our web page on virtual programming. That's where you can find the schedules and the zoom links For upcoming programs And if anybody is interested i'm going to put one more link in that takes you to A more general page where we've got lots of educational resources we've got activities and lessons and information and videos all about the atmosphere and the sun and air and weather and climate um, so Feel free to get on there for more resources and hopefully some of you will join us next week For our next one next week. We'll have somebody telling us about her adventures Doing some weather research in argentina. So that's going to be a fun one too and james. Thanks so much for joining us Yeah, great stuff. Thanks everyone great questions And thanks for coming today Bye. Bye everybody