RECENT HURRICANE RESEARCH ͳ CLIMATE, DYNAMICS, AND SOCIETAL IMPACTS Edited by Anthony R. Lupo Recent Hurricane Research - Climate, Dynamics, and Societal Impacts Edited by Anthony R. Lupo Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Ivana Lorkovic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Martina Sirotic Image Copyright Ramon Berk, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published March, 2011 Printed in India A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Recent Hurricane Research - Climate, Dynamics, and Societal Impacts, Edited by Anthony R. Lupo p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-238-8 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Part 1 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Part 2 Chapter 8 Preface XI Climatology and Climatological Factors 1 The Interannual and Interdecadal Variability in Hurricane Activity 3 Anthony R. Lupo Influence of Cosmophysical Phenomena and African Dust on Hurricanes Genesis 41 Jorge Pérez-Peraza, Víctor Manuel Velasco Herrera and Igor Libin The Impact of Hurricanes on the Weather of Western Europe 77 Kieran Hickey The Effects of Space Weather on Hurricane Activity 85 Blanca Mendoza Hurricane Intensity, Sea Surface Temperature, and Stochastic Variation 103 Kenneth T. Bogen, Larry E. Fischer and Edwin D. Jones Statistical Techniques for Exploring Possibly Increasing Trend of Hurricane Activity 119 Jesper Rydén Regional Increases in Landfall Frequency and Intensity of Atlantic Hurricanes in a Stochastic Model Forecast 129 Jessica K Turner Tropical Cyclone Dynamics and Structure 143 Barotropic Aspects of Hurricane Structural and Intensity Variability 145 Eric A. Hendricks, Hung-Chi Kuo, Melinda S. Peng and Daniel Hodyss Contents Contents VI Studies of the Hurricane Evolution Based on Modern Thermodynamics 171 Chongjian Liu, Ying Liu, Zhexian Luo, Xiaotu Lei, Donghai Wang and Xiaogang Zhou Simulation of Tropical Cyclones Using Spectral Bin Microphysics 197 Alexander Khain and Barry Lynn Analysis of Tropical Cyclones in the South China Sea and Bay of Bengal during Monsoon Season 227 Lei Yang, Wei-Wei Li, Dongxiao Wang and Yongping Li Air-sea Interaction under Hurricane Wind Conditions 247 Yuliya Troitskaya, Daniil Sergeev, Alexander Kandaurov and Vasilii Kazakov How Vertical Wind Shear Affects Tropical Cyclone Intensity Change: An Overview 269 Levi Thatcher and Zhaoxia Pu Formation of Gravitational Hurricanes Simulated by Numerical Gravitational Gas Dynamics Model 287 A. Pavlov Forecasting of Tropical Cyclones 295 Improvements of Hurricane Forecast with Vortex Initialization using WRF Variational (WRF-Var) Data Assimilation 297 Qingnong Xiao Improving Hurricane Intensity Forecasting through Data Assimilation: Environmental Conditions Versus the Vortex Initialization 319 Zhaoxia Pu The Impact of Oceanic Heat Content on the Rapid Intensification of Atlantic Hurricanes 331 Kevin Law Societal Impacts: Risk and Damage Assessment 355 Modelling Hurricane Related Hazards and Risk through GIS for Early Warning Systems 357 Andrea Taramelli, Massimiliano Pasqui, Laura Melelli, Monia Santini and Alessandro Sorichetta Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Part 3 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Part 4 Chapter 18 Contents VII Geospatial Technique for Rapid Delineation of Potential Hurricane Damage 373 William H. Cooke III, John C. Rodgers and Katarzyna Grala Storm Surge: Physical Processes and an Impact Scale 385 Hal Needham and Barry D. Keim Estimating the Vulnerability of U.S. Coastal Areas to Hurricane Damage 407 Jeffrey Pompe and Jennifer Haluska Societal Impacts: Evacuation Risks and Hazards 419 Factors Associated with Hurricane Evacuation in North Carolina 421 Horney, JA, MacDonald, PDM, Berke, P, Van Willigen, M and Kaufman, JS The Role of Non-Recurring Congestion in Massive Hurricane Evacuation Events 441 Daniel J. Fonseca, Gary P. Moynihan and Huston Fernandes Hurricanes Katrina and Rita - Effects on Children’s Healthcare 459 Gensure, Robert Charles, Ponnapakkam and Adharsh Hurricane Evacuations of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston 473 Marc Oliver Maybauer, Michael Megna, Sven Asmussen and Dirk Manfred Maybauer Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Chemical Emergencies Related to Hurricanes 483 Perri Zeitz Ruckart and Maureen F. Orr Ecological Impacts and Modeling 501 The Complexity of Catastrophic Wind Impacts on Temperate Forests 503 Weimin Xi and Robert K. Peet Hurricane Georges Accelerated Litterfall Fluxes of a 26 yr-old Novel Secondary Forest in Puerto Rico 535 Ariel E. Lugo, Carlos M. Domínguez Cristóbal, and Noemí Méndez Hurricane-Induced Phytoplankton Blooms: Satellite Observations and Numerical Model Simulations 555 Menghua Wang, Xiaoming Liu, and Wei Shi Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Part 5 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Part 6 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Contents VIII Using Regional-scale Pre- and Post Hurricane Katrina Lidar for Monitoring and Modeling 575 Jason Stoker, D. Phil Turnipseed and K. Van Wilson Segmentation Methods for Synthetic Aperture Radar 593 Shuang Wang Chapter 30 Chapter 31 . RECENT HURRICANE RESEARCH ͳ CLIMATE, DYNAMICS, AND SOCIETAL IMPACTS Edited by Anthony R. Lupo Recent Hurricane Research - Climate, Dynamics, and Societal Impacts Edited by. Melelli, Monia Santini and Alessandro Sorichetta Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Part 3 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Part 4 Chapter 18 Contents VII Geospatial. command, the JTWC, to track TCs over the western North Pacific. Recent Hurricane Research - Climate, Dynamics, and Societal Impacts 6 Weather satellite observations became routine in 19 65,