Hurricanes are among the most destructive elements in the atmosphere. This lecture will discuss the physical requirements for their formation, life cycle, damage potential and their relationship to global warming. It also distinguishes hurricanes from thunderstorms and tornadoes.
Learning objective
At the end of this course students will be able to distinguish the formation and life cycle mechanisms of tropical cyclones from those of extratropical thunderstorms/cyclones, project how tropical cyclones change in a warmer climate based on their physics and evaluate different tropical cyclone modification ideas.