Climate Change in Modern Times

Climate change is a phenomenon that has been present on earth for ages. In the distant past, it was driven heavily by natural sources, such as volcanic eruptions or changes in the earth's orbit. In modern times though, climate change is driven primarily by anthropogenic, or human-originating, sources.

Currently, the biggest contributor to anthropogenic climate change is the expansion of the greenhouse effect. This expansion is being driven primarily by the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Although carbon dioxide is less abundant in the atmosphere than water vapor (which is the most abundant greenhouse gas), it stands out in many ways: it has a higher radiative forcing than water vapor, a long life cycle, and it is by far the most common greenhouse gas that results from human activity. Human activity does not appear to be going downhill; instead, it is only increasing as the population also increases. This means that not only will carbon dioxide continue to be thrown into the atmosphere, but it will also be thrown in greater amounts.

There are many ways in which carbon dioxide is put into the atmosphere by humans. Common examples include deforestation, the burning of fossil fuels, car exhaust, and much more.

Deforestation occurs regularly. As the population increases so do the demands for housing and changing of lands. Trees are cut down to meet these demands. Trees release carbon dioxide they had absorbed prior to their cutting down when they are cut down. Diminishing the number of trees also lowers the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by trees, therefore allowing more carbon dioxide to stay in the atmosphere. Essentially, when trees are cut down, the carbon cycle is being disturbed.

So what is the buildup of carbon dioxide leading to? As stated before, it is leading to an expansion of the greenhouse effect, and the expansion of the greenhouse effect is leading to climate change. Climate change's effects can be seen everywhere, and the biggest effect of climate change is global warming. Global warming is responsible for the melting of polar ice caps, increase in dire-weather events, floods, droughts, rising sea-levels, and much more, harming both humans and animals.

So what can be done to eliminate climate change?

At this point, not much. Greenhouse gases have such long life cycles, and even if the whole earth were to stop moving (i.e. no human activity) carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would continue to have their heating effect on the atmosphere for a very long time.

Nonetheless, climate change can be combatted in the following ways: awareness and adaptation.

Awareness is important because when more people work for a cause, more happens. The more people know about climate change, the better. Adaptation is important because we cannot reverse climate change at this point as explained above. So we must learn to live with it, finding ways around the problems that it will continue impose on us.

 

Remote Sensing: Weather Satellites

Remote sensing is defined as the science of identifying, observing, and measuring an object without coming into direct contact with it. Remote Sensing originated when photography came about. It was going on for a while until it was first introduced in 1960 by Evelyn L. Pruitt of the U.S. Office of Naval Research. A satellite would detect and measure radiation of different wavelengths reflected or emitted from distant objects or materials. This data is sent to earth and computer systems translate it to an image.

Types of Remote Sensing:
Passive instruments only perceive radiation that is detected by natural energy.
Active instruments come with their own sources of EM energy and therefore are able to give light to the object of focus.

A satellite is a moon, planet or machine that orbits a planet or star. There are many types of satellites that are used to provide data for forecasting. Meteorologists use visible satellite images, infrared satellite images, and water vapor satellite images the most.

Satellites are designed in a complex manner but they all share an antenna and a power source. To collect data to forecast the weather, meteorologists would mainly focus on the two main types of satellites: GOES and POES.
- GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite and they orbit the earth above its equator at an altitude about 36,000 km high.
-POES orbit at a lower altitude of about 850 km high and take an estimate of 100 minutes to travel from pole to pole.


Satellites are proven to save lives. COSPAS-SARSAT has been acknowledged for rescuing more than 27,000 lives

1931 China Floods

The 1931 China floods can be considered the deadliest natural disasters. 52 million people were affected by the floods. You can not even tally up the amount of damage that happened that occurred in central China. You also can not tally up the amount of deaths that are caused by his storm. Over 4 million died because of the flood and this is a loose approximation. The weather leading up to the flood was unusual. They had a severe drought from 1928-1930 and than an abnormally cold winter with heavy snow. In the summer of they experienced 7 cyclones, the normal amount is two per year.
Then the dams and dykes were abused and weak because the government was disorganized from constant attempts of evasion from the Japanese and internally there was not a established government. So the weak dykes and dams were not able to contain the sudden increase in water levels and broke. All of central China was flooded. The inundations were constant and wiped out all of China's crops. Many people died because of disease and famine then the inundations itself. The situation was so bad that people resorted to cannibalism for food. It took many years for China to recover from this horrific event. China didn't build a complete dam until 2009. This was because the rivers kept breaking the dams and dykes. The 1931 China floods show us we need to be prepared for disasters and we need to keep track of our environment.

Climatology

Climatology

Climatology is the field of meteorology that focuses on the study of climate and changes in climate. In other words, climatology can be defined as the study of weather patterns of a specific location in the atmosphere over a long period of time. The actual study of climate has existed on earth for a very long time, specifically since the 9th century. The first person to ever bring about the idea of studying earth's atmospheric movements or climate, in general, was a Chinese scientist named Shen Kuo. Shen Kuo was born in 1031 in the Hangzhou province of China and was a well-known mathematician, astronomer, and inventor. He is known for being the first scientist in history to physically study earth’s climate and record it. He would later die in Zhengzhou, China in 1095.

Shen Kuo

Climatology focuses on the “collective state of the atmosphere”. This means that when you study climatology, you focus on many “collective” factors, in other words, the different measures that hinder climate. The study of climatology is focused on the “Normal”. This means that it focuses on the average conditions of a specific location over a long period of time, typically 30 years. Climatologists use these 30 years to anticipate the conditions of the atmosphere in that range. For example, it is 2017, so climatologists can predict atmospheric conditions in December of this year using the conditions of December 1887.  Climatology studies the factors that influence weather/ the conditions of a location that drive it to have the type of climate that it has.

The field of climatology focuses on improving life for living beings around the world. Climatologists inform people how to minimize pollution and help maintain a climate that is healthy and safe enough for living organisms to thrive. Climatology also helps in understanding what changes in earth's atmosphere mean and what effect they have to the people living on earth. The study of climate also helps in determining future long-term atmospheric conditions at any given time. Long-term weather patterns give information that is helpful to the government and people in general so that they can be prepared for what is to come. Climatology also aids in important things like aviation, transAtlantic and transPacific travel by water, farming, determining the rising and falling of tides, and so on. Without climatology, the world will be amounted to a ticking time bomb, in other words, no one will know what happens next.

Hurricane Charley

Hurricane Charley

Hurricane Charley was a strong storm which caused a lot of destruction. Grand Cayman Island, Cuba, Florida, and South Carolina were the places affected by hurricane Charly. Charley developed from a tropical wave that moved off the coast of Africa on August 4, 2004. On August 9, while located 115 miles southeast of Barbados, the system strengthened to become a tropical depression. It continued into the Caribbean Sea and became Tropical Storm Charley the next day. A strong ridge of high pressure caused the storm to turn northwest on August 11, about 90 miles south of Kingston, Jamaica. The hurricane intensified to Category 2 strength after passing 15 miles northeast of Grand Cayman Island. The hurricane further strengthened to Category 3 status just before making landfall over western Cuba early on August 13 with winds of 120 mph. The storm went from a hurricane with winds of 110 mph to one with 145 mph winds in just 3 hours. Charley then turned more towards the northeast and continued to strengthen, reaching Category 4 status with winds of 150 mph. Hurricane Charley made a lot of destruction. The hurricane did about 16.3 million dollars in damages and about 11,000 houses were damaged or destroyed. Hurricane Charley made landfall in Florida within 24 hours of Tropical Storm Bonnie this was the first time two tropical cyclones made landfall in one state within a single day.

Heat Wave 1936

On the summer of 1936 happened the deadliest heat wave of U.S history. With 5000 people dead, the great heat wave was divided into two phases, the first one was formed on July 6th. It began on North Midwest and moved northeast to Southern Ontario and hit eight states on U.S ( IL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, WI, OH ), leaving a total of 3959 fatalities. This wave was destroyed on 16th of July when a cold front moved into that region and scoured all the hot air, but at the same day the heat reloaded on Southern Midwest and moved down to the South and West of  U.S, this was a much longer ( until late August ) and intense heat wave, but not that successful since the geographical area that it hit was much more urbanized. The Great Heat Wave of 1936, set up many all time records of temperature in US, counting 15 states for that. It also set up records as the warmest summer since 1895, with an average of 74.6 degrees Fahrenheit and July as the single warmest month ever recorded with a mean of 77.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

Blizzard of 1888

The Blizzard of 1888, which to date is one of the deadliest snowstorms to hit the United States, formed on March 11. Eerily enough, temperatures on March 10–just a day before the storm hit—were in the mid-50’s in the Northeast. That all changed on March 11, when cold Arctic air from Canada collided with Gulf air from the south and temperatures collided. Rain turned to snow and winds reached hurricane-strength. New yorkers were about a week away from spring; no one expected a sudden drop in temperature, let alone snow.

The snowstorm was categorized as a blizzard: a storm with winds of more than 35 miles per hour and snow that limits visibility to 500 feet or less. A severe blizzard is defined as having winds exceeding 45 miles an hour, and temperatures of 10 degrees fahrenheit or lower.  The blizzard of 1888, indeed, was labeled as a severe blizzard. The national weather service estimated that fifty inches of snow fell in Connecticut and Massachusetts and forty inches covered New York and New Jersey. Winds blew up to 48 miles an hour, creating snowdrifts forty to fifty feet high.

New york was the state that was affected most by this storm. More than 400 lives were taken away and 25 million dollars in property damage resulted. Telegraph and telephone wires snapped when they could no longer sustain the weight of the snow and ice, in effect isolating New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington for many days. Two hundred ships sunk, and at least one hundred seamen died.

In conclusion, this was one of the worst blizzards in American history that struck the Northeast. This blizzard is remembered most for the snow that it released on the East Coast. Two reasons why this blizzard was so odd and unique was firstly because most severe winter storms that affect the Northeast are caused by an outbreak of cold air across the eastern U.S. No such air mass was in place prior to the development of the storm. Secondly, the storm center became stationary and actually made a counterclockwise loop off the coast of southern New England. Despite the tragedies, meteorologists found these atmospheric conditions fascinating and still do!

George Hadley

        George Hadley was born on February 12, 1685 in London, England. He was known as an English physicist and a meteorologist. He was elected as a fellow of the royal society. Meaning he helped improved natural knowledge. Hadley was the one who made the first study of trade winds. His life as meteorologist was interesting and he was an amateur at the time. Hadley suggested the atmospheric mechanism by which the trade winds are uninterrupted. This is known as the Hadley circulation. The trade winds are winds that prevail through most of the tropics, blowing mostly from the northeast from the northern hemisphere and the southeast from the southern hemisphere. Trade winds help sailors move from place to place because without it, they would float. It also helps planes take off but if planes takeoff into the wind then it would cost more fuel. George Hadley died on June 28, 1768.

Jim Cantore

          Jim Cantore was born on February 16, 1964, in Beacon Falls Connecticut. He grew up in Vermont and graduated from Lydon State College majoring in meteorology. From a young age, he developed a passion for both journalism and meteorology. After graduating from college, he started work as an intern for the weather channel at the age of twenty-two. Since then, he has never stopped working there and is now one of the most successful and influential broadcasters in the United States.
           Today Jim Cantore is 53 years old. He is an American meteorologist and journalist. He works as a storm a storm tracker for the Weather Channel. He is renowned for covering nearly all major weather events in America for the past twenty-five years. He has covered a variety of storms such as Hurricanes like Gustave, Katrina, Sandy, and Rita; and snow storms like the Chicago blizzard of 2011. In addition to being an air-personality,  he has also covered the x-games and is a philanthropist. He is an active member of various humanitarian and charity programs like Make a Wish Foundation and Micheal J. Fox Foundation.
             Jim Cantore is an informer who rather than keeps the audience bored, engages the audience and keeps it interesting so that ultimately they will understand the severity of any situation. For his accomplishments of being so radically as a storm tracker, and contributing so much to the field of calamities, he has earned membership in the American Meteorological Association.

Tri-State tornado

The Tri-State tornado, formed on march 18, 1925, as a result of a combination of warm front coming from the west, with a cold front coming from the southwest. The Tri-State tornado began at 1 pm on Ellington (MS) and dissipated 10 miles northeast from Princeton (IL), the tornado lasted for three hours and thirty minutes, tracking 219, miles, it had 1 mile wide, an average speed of 62 mph with a maximum of 73 mph and wind speed of 300 mph ( category 5 ). The Tri-State tornado passed through the states of Missouri, Indiana and Illinois, hit thirteen counties, 15.000 homes damaged or destroyed, creating a damage estimated in 16.5 M at the time, and counting 695 deaths and 2.027 injuries. This catastrophic tornado featured the deadliest tornado in U.S history and second deadliest tornado in the world history.

European Heat Wave of 2003

The 2003 European Heat Wave caused many deaths throughout European lands. The seriously hot period of this event only lasted 3 months, but it's effects lasted longer. It took a long time for farmers to get back on their feet from all their dead livestock as the result of the Heat Wave. Many cows, chickens, pigs, and other farm animals died from dehydration or other factors. Not only the farmers livestock, but also many crops had been destroyed because of the climate conditions. This tampered with the prices of foods and drinks causing them to rise because there was less and less, and they haven't gone back down yet. Now the actual causes of the Heat Wave were of  four major causes. The first is the fact that there was an anticyclone hovering over Europe at the time. An anticyclone is simply the reverse of a cyclone, so instead of it causing rain and clouds with low pressure, it has high pressure so there are no clouds, the weather is calm and still. The second cause is the amount of pollution that had been produced, this caused climate change as well. The third is that there was an El Niño that had previously happened that past winter and there were lingering effects from that. An El Niño is simply a warm winter. This happens when warm waters are pushed West through the pacific, and the water vapors from this water warms the air. The last cause of this catastrophe is the fact that there was a storm in Southern Portugal that pushed a strong gust of hot air from a desert west across Europe. This catastrophe killed as many as 30,000 had died this year. Many of the deaths being of elderly age and caused from air pollution, dehydration, heat strokes, etc. The damage heat waves produce are very underestimated. Heat waves actually take more lives than hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods combines. The Heat Wave also produced many wildfires throughout the continent. These wildfires burned many forests to the ground stripping Europe fo a lot of its trees. There were also droughts and floods that had to be accounted for. The floods were caused by melting icebergs and glaciers. Overall the 2003 European Heat Wave effected Europes economy, agriculture, and population for the worst.

Hurricane Sandy 

Hurricane Sandy was a storm which caused destruction, deaths, and floods too. Jamaica, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Bahamas and the East Coast of the U.S were the places affected by Sandy. On October 22, Sandy began to form down in the Caribean. Sandy started as a tropical wave that left the west coast of Africa on October 11and then quickly it turned into a tropical storm. Then by October 24, Sandy became a category 1 hurricane as it crossed Jamaica and then as it moved it became stronger and by the time it hit Cuba, Sandy had winds of 110mph just one mph below the status of a major category 3 hurricane. After that Sandy lost strength and became again a category 1 hurricane. But as it moves to the U.S coast it combined with a cold front which made it stronger with higher speeds and caused floods. After it caused major destruction in the coast the hurricane turned into a snowstorm which dumped 26 inches of snow on Redhouse, Md., 24 inches in Alpine Lake, W.V., and 18 inches in Newfound Gap, Tenn. The transformation of Sandy from rainstorm to snowstorm is a consequence of a blast of Arctic air that has fed the storm even as it has moved out of tropical waters. Normally, a tropical storm like Sandy would weaken as it moves northward into cooler waters. But a dip in the polar jet stream has fueled the storm. Hurricane Sandy caused a lot of destruction and deaths. Sandy caused at least 130 deaths, about 8 million people had no power, at least 675,000 homes destroyed, 200,000 people were homeless, and 867 million dollars of destruction. Overall, this hurricane was definitely one of the strongest that the United States ever experienced.

Guy Stewart Callendar

       Guy Stewart Callendar was born on February 1897 in Montreal, Canada. Later dying at the age of 67 on October 1964. His father, Hugh Longbourne Callendar was a well-known physicist in Britain. His father was into the thermodynamics. But back to Callendar, he was a very good power plant engineer and his job was to find ways to how to make energy production more efficient. However, on his spare time when he was working Callendar read about Meteorology. Giving him a good amount knowledge about Meteorology. Then with the knowledge that he gathered he was the first the link global warming to CO² emissions. But since he wasn't recognized as a Meteorologist people didn't him the credit for his discovery. But then his discovery was later called the Callendar Effect. Some of his studies were based on the Swedish Scientist Arrhenius and his prediction the warming was most noted in continental interiors and less in the oceans. Also Callendar did observe how the temperature dropped year by year and when it rose year by year. Later leading to his discovery of CO² emissions and its connection with global warming. Furthermore, I feel that Callendar’s discovery was very important to the field of Meteorology because now more scientists are starting to look more into how global warming is affecting the Earth and how they are trying to help prevent the matter from getting worse.

The Year Without Summer

"The Year Without Summer", also known as the mini ice age, was a beyond average event that caused suffering to millions of North Americans and Europeans because of the decrease in global temperatures by about 2-6 degrees that quite literally never allowed for the usual hot weather to arrive in the summer months of 1816. The trigger to this odd year was  Mountain Tambora, a stratovolcano and the highest mountain on the island of Sumbawa  in Indonesia. This mountain erupted on April 1815, shooting columns of dust, ash, and gas that shadowed over the earth and cooled it in just a few months. This eruption also coincided with a sunspot minimum further causing the troposphere to cool down. The weather remaining cold all year led to failed crops, which took a even harder toll on a human population that was already a majority of farmers, near- famine conditions, and overall freezing many people to death. The weather in the year of 1816 caused events from freezing lakes in Pennsylvania in July and dropping frozen dead birds from the sky to having influence over the creations of Frankenstein, Dracula, and the modern bicycle.

Vilhelm Bjerknes

Vilhelm Bjerknes was born on March 14, 1862 in Christiana, Norway previously known as Oslo, Norway. When Vilhelm was a young kid, his father would have him help out with his own research. I think this experience when Vilhelm was younger is the reason why his research was so great when he grew up. Vilhelm was a Norwegian meteorologist and physicist. He was also one of the founders of the and developers of the modern science in weather forecasting. Vilhelm was also a professor at many colleges and universities. Some being the University of Stockholm and the University of Leipzig. What most people consider to be Vilhelm's most memorable contribution to the field of meteorology is that he came up with the Polar Front Theory. This theory includes fronts and the formation of cyclones. What I think is interesting about this theory is that he came up with while working with his son. This reminds me of how Vilhelm's dad had him help out ands now he has his son helping out. Fronts tell how the weather is going to be. For example, cold fronts bring cold weather and warm fronts bring warmer weather. Polar Front theory talks about how a cyclone forms when there a disturbance in a front. Bjerknes does not get the credit that he deserves when it cames to the fame of his theories and research towards the field of meteorology. This is due to the fact that he worked with a lot of people while doing his research. This is why his name is not that well known. What people should know is that he inspired many people to continue his research and advance the field of meteorogoly themselves. Inspiration is one of his major contributions to the firld of meteorology in my opinion. Vilhelm Bjerknes ended up dying in thesame place he was born in Apri 9, 1951.

Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina 

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most powerful storms in the United States. This storm developed in the Atlantic and was called Tropical Depression 12. When the storm passed the Bahamas, it developed to a Category 3 Hurricane. The storm eventually developed to a Category 5 storm as it approached land. According to the research that I have done, New Orleans was hit the hardest because they are 8 feet under sea level. After the storm hot, 80% of New Orleans was under 20 feet of water. It took about a week for National Guards to help out the people who were stranded in New Orleans. About 1,500 died in New Orleans and a total of 1,833 people died during this hurricane.

Luke Howard

Luke Howard was born in London on November 28, 1772 and was the first child of a wealthy business man named Robert Howard. He became just like his father, a business man, and had his own company called Howard & Cooperation. In this business, he manufactured pharmaceutical chemicals or medical drugs. Howard attended a Quaker school and from there he was employed as a retail chemist. He published a book called "The Climate of London". From this, people elected him as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Which is someone who helps improve natural knowledge. 

Howard's Contributions:

Howard's main contribution to meteorology was the nomenclature system of clouds. He named these three clouds, which are Cirrus (meaning curl of hair), Cumulus (meaning a pile), and Stratus (meaning spread out sheet) . From these three clouds he created four more clouds by combining the main three. So there is Cirrus-cumulus, Cirrus-stratus, Cumulus-stratus, and Nimbus, which is all 3 clouds joining together. There is also two more clouds called Alto-cumulus and Alto-stratus, but he wasn't known for naming these two clouds. People used his naming for clouds because everyone could understand universal Latin at the time and it was important on the change of clouds. 

Howard's naming for clouds is still used today because it is understandable and it can help meteorologist point out what type of clouds are shown in different weather areas. 

Gabriel Fahrenheit

 
Gabriel Fahrenheit was born May 14, 1686 in Danzig, Germany. He grew up being the eldest of five siblings. At the age of 15, Fahrenheit lost his parents due to mushroom poisoning. Shortly after, Fahrenheit begun a career in bookkeeping. He then realized that bookkeeping didn't suit him so he developed an interest in scientific instruments. Fahrenheit begun his career by observing other scientists and their accomplishments. He would grasp their knowledge and acquire their techniques. By 1714 Gabriel Fahrenheit had created his first two thermometers. They contained alcohol and agreed in their readings precisely. Later on, Fahrenheit conducted an investigation that provided evidence of mercury having a higher boiling point and high coefficient(density) during expansion. So he resorted to using mercury for his future thermometers.Originally, Fahrenheit designed his scale referenced on three-fixed points. A salt-ice-water mixture would the lowest temperature (0°F). Placing his thermometer in water just before it was about to freeze (Freezing point) would be at 32°F. And his third calibration was noted when his thermometer was placed under the arm or in the mouth(96-98°F). This would be the body temperature.



Here are some of the main thresholds of the Fahrenheit scale.

After creating this scale and proving its accuracy, Fahrenheit was inducted into the British Royal Society, which mad the Fahrenheit scale official for Great Britain. Although only a few countries use the Fahrenheit scale today, Fahrenheit laid the foundation of all future studies involving temperature or temperature measurement.

The Dust Bowl

The Dust Bowl was so devastating because of it's timing. The World War recession demanded farmers plant more grains. With the introduction of Mechanized Farming, farmers quickly plowed millions of acres taking out drought resistant prairie grass. In 1931 a drought hit and all the crops died leaving loose topsoil that blew up with the wind hundreds of millions acres of topsoil. The dust storms went with the winds, and sometimes reaching far east covering the Statue of Liberty and coating ships in the Atlantic with dust. It made 250,000 people move out their homes. It killed 7,000 by giving them dust pneumonia, a disease caused by inhaling to much dust. People called these dust storms black blizzards.
In April 14, 1935 the worst dust storm occurred sweeping 124,000,000 acres of topsoil with it, from the Oklahoma panhandle. People called that day Black Sunday and from that day people called the great plains the dust Bowl. One-third of farmers moved to California to find work and they faced discrimination, people called them okies. They lived in shantytowns and lived in tents along irrigation
ditches. People were desperate for jobs because of the great depression. It finally ended in 1939 with the first rain showers.

The Big Thompson Flood

The Big Thompson Flood was one of the deadliest floods in Colorado’s recorded history. This flood occurred on a saturday which marked Colorado’s 100th anniversary of statehood. There was 3,500 people present and they were all unaware of the strange atmospheric conditions. Throughout the Big Thompson Canyon, there are steep, rocky, mountain slopes.  During that saturday afternoon, moist air rose upwards and the unstable air began to build into thunderstorms. The picture below demonstrates a radar image of the thunderstorm over the Big Thompson Canyon. Intense thunderstorms stretching from north-central Colorado (point A) to southeast Kansas (point C).

At 6:30 p.m. these heavy thunderstorms began to dump heavy rain. These thunderstorms remained over the Big Thompson Canyon for 3 hours, and developed into a gigantic thunderstorm system. The Thunderstorm remained over the Big Thompson Canyon because high-altitude westerly winds, which are usually strong enough to push thunderstorms eastward and out of the area, were unusally weak. There was 144 deaths, and more than 250 injuries were reported. This extreme flood caused $35 million dollars in damage.

This picture above demonstrates the after-math and how severe the storm was. There was  418 homes and businesses that were destroyed, and over 300,000 cubic yards of debris from the canyon that had to be removed. Since this extreme storm occurred during night, it caught most people by surprise, no one was prepared for this flood. According to several law enforcers, who issued warnings, most of the people in the canyon were not officially warned. In result, leading to several deaths. Today, flood specialists recognize that awareness of flooding is a combination of weather preparedness and personal responsibility. "Bricks serve as a memory of the victims in the 1976 flood of the Big Thompson River in Drake."

T. Theodore Fujita

T. Theodore was born on October 23, 1920 in Kitakyūshū City, Japan. Fujita earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering in 1943 from Meiji College of Technology located in Japan. Later he moved to the United States and joined the meteorology department at the University of Chicago. He became a United States citizen and took the name 'Theodore" as a middle name. He introduced the basic concepts of thunderstorm architecture. For example, he introduced the terms wall cloud and tail cloud.

The Palm Sunday outbreak of 1965 changed the course of how we view a tornado outbreak because Fujita concluded that there was indeed something special about certain tornadoes... that they must contain more than one vortex. 

His most important contributions include:  

-His creation of the standard scale for rating the severity of tornadoes. Theodore Fujita's scale system is a scale of tornado severity that ranges from  numbers from 0 to 5. Five is a complete destruction and zero being a minimal destruction. 

-His discovery of the role of sudden violent down-bursts of air that sometimes cause airplanes to crash.These violent downbursts are called microbursts. He explained that the air sinking down toward the ground eventually disperse in many directions causing the plain to loose control. 

Tetsuya Fujita suffered an illness which lead to his death on November 19, 1998 in Chicago, IL. Through him other fields were able to improve as well.Without him the field of meteorology would not be as advanced as it is now.

Johannes Kepler

   Johannes Kepler was born on 1571, in modern day Germany, and passed away in 1630 at the age of 58. From a young age, Kepler became a man who suffered from severe illnesses; he was sick from birth, contracted smallpox, and had severely defective vision. He was a devout Christian who believed his vocation was to study works of God. He attended the University of Tuebingen where he studied Latin, Greek, theology, mathematics, and Astronomy. He then proceeded to work in various jobs in the field of mathematics or astronomy like a high school teacher, district mathematician, and assistant of Tycho Brahe(another acclaimed astronomer).
        As an Astronomer, Johannes Kepler's preeminence in terms of establishing the standards of both modern-day physics and astronomy is above all others. Kepler is the man who discovered three laws of celestial bodies called Kepler's Laws. Kepler's Laws are:     

1. First Law
1. The orbit of a planet around the Sun (or of a satellite around a planet) is not a perfect circle. It is an ellipse
2. Second Law
1. A planet’s orbital speed changes, depending on how far it is from the Sun.The closer a planet is to the Sun, the stronger the Sun’s gravitational pull on it, and the faster the planet moves.
3. Third Law
1. The larger a planet’s orbit, the longer the planet takes to complete it.

Because of Kepler's Laws, today we are capable of using: satellites for things like television, communications, weather, and navigation; and calculus as Isaac Newton was able to create(or discover) with Kepler's laws as a foundation which today is used for physics, economics, medicine and even meteorology. Today because of Kepler's laws, Meteorologist are able to use satellites to see whether such as hurricanes, volcanoes, and blizzards and show measure ocean temperatures and prevailing currents and show sea level and altitude. In addition to meteorologists using satellites, meteorologists can also in part thank Kepler for using calculus to determine the gradient of a field. That is, to identify what direction to move in order to see the greatest temperature increase, for instance. And even how much it increases after you go a certain distance in that direction.

Johannes Kepler is the man who has contributed greatly to meteorology and science as a whole. He set the foundation for modern-day science and very well essentially saved millions and maybe even billions of lives as meteorologists are able to use his discoveries to predict weather and save lives.

Superstorm of 1993 - "The Storm of the Century"

The Superstorm of 1993 was a storm that mystified our country; when it hit the south, it spawned thunderstorms and tornadoes; but, when it hit the northeast, it dumped record-breaking amounts of snow.

So what exactly was it?

It was, in essence, a large cyclone; it reached from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to New England--and even parts of Canada--at its largest.

It formed over the Gulf of Mexico on March 12, 1993, and rapidly intensified because of certain conditions that were already in place. As it moved toward the U.S., it pummeled the south with thunderstorms, strong winds, and even tornadoes. Most of the tornadoes spawned in Florida, causing about 12 deaths. When the storm reached northeastern states, it began to snow in record-breaking amounts. Meteorologists ascertain that it began to snow because the storm system encountered cold air. And the reason why it snowed so much was that the cyclone had an extremely low pressure (in fact, one of the lowest ever recorded). When a storm system has low pressure, cloud formation and precipitation normally ensue. The storm had also picked up lots of water as it moved from the gulf coast to the states. In fact, it dumped about 44 million acre-feet of water. In other words, it precipitated enough to fill 44 million football fields with one foot of water!

Perhaps the most chilling of all was the fact that this storm felt like a hurricane. As it dumped snow on the state's, wind speeds of up to 90 mph accompanied it.

All in all, the storm dumped about a foot or slightly more on cities like D.C., NYC, and Philadelphia; it caused 10 million people to lose electricity; it caused 270+ deaths; it did about $5.5 billion in damage.