Joanne Simpson

      Joanne Simpson was the first woman to receive a Ph.D in meteorology. She was born on March 23, 1923 in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended the University of Chicago. She made many significant discoveries, led research projects, and influenced generations of scientists. For instance, she led the team that proposed the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), which is still used today. The TRMM is a meteorological satellite used for mapping tropical precipitation in order to better understand the earth's climate system and to verify climate models. This satellite helps scientists to find factors that influence rainfall. It also can help accurately estimate the latent heat in the tropics. Throughout her career, she faced women oppression. One experience was when she wanted to get her Ph.D in meteorology, her faculty advisor told her that no woman will be able to get their Ph.D in meteorology, and even if she did, no one would hire her. However, she was still able to overcome all oppression and have a huge impact on meteorology today.Joanne Simpson died on March 4, 2010.

Ozone Layer

Kapri Robinson

Ozone Layer 

The ozone layer is a vast substance that keeps us alive.The ozone layer protects us from the suns harmful ultra violet rays. It is found in two places, the stratosphere and troposphere. In the stratosphere the ozone protects us from the suns harmful ultra violet rays that cause eye and skin damage. We call this type of ozone good ozone. The troposphere houses bad ozone. This type of ozone ruins crops, weaken our immune system and causes cancer. This type of ozone also causes urban smog. 

The holes in the ozone layer are caused by burning fossil fuels and CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere. The ozone holes grow bigger in the winter and smaller in the summer. By 2072 scientist estimate the ozone layer to be fully repaired.

1930s Dust Bowl

My project was on the 1930s Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl was period in America's history that brought fear and chaos. Many people believed the world was going to end. A dust bowl is created when a large area of land has lost all of it's vegetation and the vegetations mixes with the topsoil to form dust. As strong gusts of wind come along it picks up all the dust laying on the field and forms huge dust clouds that can travel a long way and can have high-wind speeds. These dust storms would hide cities under massive amount of displaced dirt. Especially on Black Sunday, which occurred on April 14, 1935, which was the worst storm in Dust Bowl history. It was about 200 miles wide and had wind speeds of 65 MPH. Storms of this nature caused immense agricultural  and economical damage. Many people were forced to leave their homes due to the storms. In 1939 the drought finally ended with rain. Shortly after the end of the Dust Bowl, the United States fell into the Great Depression.

Hurricane Katrina Summary

Nicholas Devasia

My Symposium Project was about Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina formed on the 23rd of August over the Bahamas. On the 29th Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the U.S. When the hurricane hit, it was considered a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale. When the hurricane reached its climax, it was then considered a category 5. Vast amounts of rain flooded major cities like New Orleans in Louisiana and Long Beach in Mississippi. When the storm dissipated, most of those cities were overly flooded. After the storm, many citizens stood up and helped out. Since a lot of people lost their homes, FEMA (federal emergency management association) had to stay in the cities that were effected so they could give the people food and shelter. Nearly 2,000 people died, 30% of New Orleans were in poverty, and it took several days, months, and even years to fix and clean all of the damage. Even though my town cancelled school for a couple of days, the storm didn't really affect us in a way that was tragic. The storm's strongest point was in the southeast quadrant of the U.S. so New Jersey didn't get hit that badly. There were several facts about Hurricane Katrina that I did not know before researching. One example would be that there are still at least 700 humans reported missing from the hurricane. Another fact is that even though several states weren't affected by the storm physically, Hurricane Katrina caused gas prices to go up, and it effected the economy. One thing I did not enjoy was the fact that Hurricane Katrina killed about two-thousand lives. Even though a natural disaster isn't controllable, humans as a society should be more prepared for incidents like this so we could avoid such a high amount of deaths.

Forecasting Villhelm and Jacob BjerknesVillhelm

Denzel Pettway

Villhelm was a Norwegian Physicist and Meteorologist who studied hydrodynamics. He was born on March 14, 1862 in Christiania Norway.  His greatest discovery's were the Theory of Phenomenon of Electrical Resonance, The founding of Bergen Geophysical institute, and the Polar Front Theory. Before all of these discoveries he attended the university of Christiania in the 1880's were he graduated and later  began working alongside Heinrich Hertz who was known for proving the existence of electromagnetic waves. After a while he end up working at university of Christiania were he was a professor. Villhelm had a son who he influenced to pursue meteorology as a career. The name of his son was Jacob Bjerknes. Jacob Bjerknes was born November 7, 1897 in Stockholm Sweden. As an adult Jacob worked alongside his father at the Bergen Geophysical Institute where they came up with the Polar Front Theory. Prior to this theory Jacob and Villhelm Collaborated networks of weather bureaus which eventually led up to this theory. The Polar Front Theory was essential to understanding the weather in the middle and high latitudes which was a major feat for weather forecasters.        



    

The El Reno, Oklahoma EF-5 tornado struck on May 8, 2013. This tornado is credited as the widest ever recorded, at 2.6 miles. Winds were upwards of 295 mph and the total distance traveled was 16.2 miles. It formed as a result of the mixing of a stationary front and a dryline. The heat of the day, moisture, and instability made the storm become tornadic. The path it traveled was unusual because of its abrupt turn to the northeast. Also, the width increased rapidly from 1 mile to 2.6 miles in just minutes. This was the second EF-5 tornado in Oklahoma within 11 days. Even though structures, buildings, and cars, along with other things (telephone poles and windmills) were destroyed, the damages were not as severe as they could have been because the tornado passed over mostly rural area. In total, there were 20 deaths (3 storm-chasers) and over one hundred more injuries.  

Tetsuya Theodore Fujita

    Mr. Fujita was a Japanese american extreme storm researcher who studied tornadoes, hurricanes, and thunderstorms. He was born on October 23, 1920, and died November 19, 1998.  His greatest influence to his field are his discovery of down bursts, micro bursts, concept of Multiple-vortex tornadoes and The Fujita Scale. Before all of this he was studying at Kyushu institute of Technology, and after graduating he became an assistant professor until 1953, when Horace R. Byers invited him to Chicago university after seeing his independent discovery on the cold-air downdrafts. He was almost involved in a bombing to his hometown of Kitakyushu, which was saved because of Bad weather ironically which could set the bomb off before it hits. The bombers still hit Nagasaki where Ted developed the down bursts, which are strong ground level wind system that emanates from a single source, blowing in a straight line in all directions, and the micro bursts which are smaller versions of down bursts. After a while he created a tornado simulator which he used to prove the discoveries he made. Originally the concept of multiple-vortex tornadoes was thought to be a rare occurrence, but Mr. Fujita discovered that huge tornadoes it is common. His greatest contribution to meteorology and tornadoes is the fujita scale which ranks tornadoes from F-1, to F-5, with F-5 being the most fastest wind speeds and damaging tornadoes, and F-1 being the weakest damage, and slow wind speeds. Overall Mr. Fujita lived an eventful and dedicated life to his work, and helped us to better understand Tornadoes.