The Year Without A Summer

The Year Without A Summer


        Over centuries ago in 1815, Mount Tambora located in Indonesia erupted in one of the world's most powerful volcanic eruptions. This resulted in thousands of deaths on the island of Sumbawa.


1816 became known as “The year without a summer”  because suddenly unusually cold, wet conditions swept Europe and North America. The cold temperatures of 1816 would not have been possible if it was not for the eruption of Mount Tambora. The volcanic eruption claimed 10,000 lives either directly killing the victims or indirectly by the tsunamis the eruption created. An additional 80,000 people died from disease that spread.
The eruption pumped out an incredible amount of sulfur into the stratosphere, which oxidized and created sulfate aerosols. These volcanic aerosols reduce net shortwave radiation causing; widespread, long-lasting surface cooling. Reduction in global rainfall changes in the large-scale circulation of both ocean and atmosphere. Those Sulfate Aerosols caused the long term surface cooling, which caused the global temperature to drop a whopping three degrees Celsius.
The Ash and gas spewed into the atmosphere blocked out sunlight or sun altogether for more than an entire year. 1816 broke the record for being the coldest year in the last 250 years. Mostly affected Asia, Europe, and North America Crop and agricultural failure causes the price of food to jump across the globe and death of livestock and world wide famine.
Heavy snowfall and frost persisted through the summer months of 1816 destroying most of the crops in Asia North America and Europe. As famine takes hold, the livestock dies in masses and the people begin to follow soon after. 
Different types of illness spread and the sulfur in the air causes lung infections. The monsoon season is altered causing flooding in china and droughts in Africa. The widespread starvation caused thousands around the world to migrate.

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was born on December 25, 1571, in Weil der Stadt, Württemberg, and he died at the age of 58 on November 15, 1630, in Regensburg Germany. He was a well known German astronomer who was well known for his three laws of planetary motion.

• Kepler's First Law of Planetary Motion: All planet move around the sun in a elliptical orbit.
• Kepler's Second Law of Planetary Motion: The speed of the planet increases as it is near to the sun, and decreases as it moves away from the sun.
• Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion: How long it takes a planet to revolve around the sun is equal to the distance of the sun.

Other than those three laws, Kepler was also known for many other things like giving a correct account on how vision works, created a Keplerian telescope, which is an refracting telescope use for observation which has a positive objectives lens and positive eye piece which gives an inverted image and a wide field of view.

Theodore Fujita

Theodore Fujita was one of the most important meteorologists to ever live. He was responsible for discovering many meteorological terms and has done elaborate studies on tornadoes and how much damage they cause. He did most of his studies using the F scale or ( Fujita scale) that ranks tornadoes on how strong the winds are and how much damage they caused and he was the inventor of the F scale. He is well known for his handwritten maps of tornadoes and the directions they take. Theodore Fujita is well known in the University of Chicago for being a brilliant professor and an amazing meteorologist.

The Hurricane of 1938

The Hurricane of 1938

Also called “The Great New England Hurricane” and “The Long Island Express,” the Hurricane of 1938 was a powerful category 3 hurricane the hit the East Coast, mainly Long Island and New England. The hurricane developed out of tropical storms near Cape Verde, and took the normal route of a hurricane: across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Caribbean Sea. The U.S Weather Bureau projected it to hit Florida and run up the coast. An warning was issued and many Florida residents got supplies. However, the hurricane mad a sudden right turn and started to head north. Charles Pierce, a young forecaster, told his superiors that because of two high pressure systems in unusual locations, the hurricane would smash right into the northeast coast, mainly Long Island and southern New England. They laughed at him and said it was just going to veer right out to sea and die there. That was their mistake. The hurricane made landfall in Long Island on September 21, 1938, at 2:30 p.m, at high tide and the night of a full moon, making the ocean waters very high. It caused severe damage and an enormous amount of deaths. It went straight through Long Island and southern New England, causing most of its damage there. It then made its way into northern New England and Canada, but had lost its intensity. It finally died out over Canada that night. Overall, wind speed average at 120 mph, and wind gusts topping out at 186 mph. The storm surge (sea-level rise during a storm) was 12-15 ft high, on top of the already high sea levels, and wave heights reaching 50 feet. This deadly storm took 700 lives, 600 being from the regions talked about above, and caused 3.06 million 1938 dollars in damage (today about 18 billion).

Heat-Wave of 2011

The Heat wave of the summer of 2011 struck the majority of North America for the months of July through August. This was the the deadliest heat wave to hit North america since 1936. With heat index readings towards 131 degrees Fahrenheit, this heat wave was responsible for at least 25 deaths in July of that year alone. High temperatures coupled with an extreme drought made for some of the hottest days ever recorded in 85 years in places like Texas and Oklahoma. Starting in mid United States and then spreading eastward. This heatwave affected the mid-west U.S. to the eastern coast and upwards into eastern Canada.

Luke Howard

Luke Howard was born in London in 1772 he lived 92 years and died in 1864 in Tottenham. When he was 8 his father sends him on one of the best boarding school in the United kingdom Buford Oxfordshire. In that school, he learns a lot of Latin language and a lot of math.In 1798 he went to a partnership whit William Allen, one successful pharmacist.Howard was a newer trained meteorologist or scientist but for more than 30 years he maintained a record of accurate thermometer and barometer readings and visual observation. Luke Howard was called the father of methodology because he does that in the London area from 1801 to 1841. He publishes his Essay on the Modification of Clouds in1803, he named three main types of clouds(cumulus, stratus, cirrus)

Clouds are made of water droplets or ice crystals that are small and light they are able to stay in the air.

The high of a clause in the atmosphere is recorded in three-level : low level(0-8000feet)

                                                                                                          Mid-level(8000-20000feet)

                                                                                                          High level(higher than 20000feet)

Dr. William Gray

     Dr. William Gray was born October 9, 1929 and moved to Washington D.C. in 1939 where he attended Wilson High School and George Washington University. At GWU he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology. During high school and college he had originally dreamed to become a professional baseball player but received an injury that curbed his dream. Shortly after his graduation from GWU he joined the Air Force in 1953 where he served as a weather forecaster for four years and he would remain in the Air Force until 1974 when he retired as a Lt. Col.
     After his active duty ended in the Air Force Dr. Gray would go on to earn a Masters degree in Meteorology and a Ph.D in Geophysical Sciences in the University of Chicago. Later in 1961, he would join the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. At CSU he would be an esteemed professor there and head the Tropical Meteorology Project. He would teach 70 Masters and Ph.D students, many of them becoming leaders in the field of Tropical Meteorology. Most notably among these students was Philip Klotzbach, who would take over both the responsibility of heading the Tropical Meteorology Project and authoring the seasonal hurricane forecasts after Dr. Gray's retirement.
     Later in his life, Dr. Gray became a vocal opponent of Anthropogenic Climate Change, making him a very controversial figure in the topic. Dr. Gray would pass away on April 16, 2016. An obituary was written by Philip Klotzbach and the Tropical Meteorology Project would post one to their website.
     Dr. Gray was most known for two things: his pioneering of hurricane forecasting and his controversial stance on climate change.
     Dr. Gray's first forecast was in 1984. What made his hurricane forecast so important was that he formed it from several sources of data such as atmospheric conditions, water temperature and water current. His forecast emphasized predicting the intensity and number of storms rather than their path and whether or not they would make landfall. His model of forecasting has been used for over 30 years. He asserted that the frequency and intensity of tropical storms in the North Atlantic occurred in a cycle, pointing to six main factors that caused it. The two most important factors were the impact of the El Nino and the amount of rainfall in the African Sahel.
     As previously stated Dr. Gray was a controversial figure in the topic of climate change. He was a skeptic of human-induced climate change, and took a vocal stance against it. He would be a speaker st the Heartland Institute's International Conference for Climate Change in July 2014 where he would restate his dissent to the idea. Judith A. Curry the chairwoman of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology would accuse him of 'brain fossilization'. Dr. Gray did believe in global warming but had attributed it to variation in the global ocean currents caused by a rise of ocean salinity. In an article he wrote for BBC news he would go on to state that humanity had little to nothing to do with the climate changing, stating it was simply a natural occurrence.

The Joplin Tornado - Eric Romero

The Joplin Tornado:

The 5th Deadliest Disaster in USA History

By Eric Romero

Fall - Meteorology - Tuorto

First, what is a tornado? A tornado is a rapidly rotating column of air that has contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud, a dense, towering vertical cloud, forming from water vapor carried by powerful upward air currents, or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud, puffy, cotton-like clouds. These powerful whirlwinds can reach up to 200 MPH. There are also many types of tornados. A dust devil is a strong, and short-term whirlwind varying in sizes. Their motion is upward. Dust devils are usually harmless, but can on rare occasions grow large enough to pose a threat to both people and property; a waterspout is a very harsh vortex that occurs over a body of water. The water inside a waterspout is formed by condensation in the cloud; a multiple-vortex tornado is a tornado that contains several vortices rotating around as part of the main vortex. A gustnado is a short-lived, ground-based swirling wind that can form on the leading edge of a severe thunderstorm; a fire whirl is a whirlwind induced by a fire and often composed of flame or ash; and a steam devil is a small, weak whirlwind over water that has drawn fog into the vortex. They form over large lakes and oceans during cold air outbreaks while the water is still relatively warm, and can be an important mechanism in vertically transporting moisture.

Dust Devil

Waterspout

Mulitple-vortex tornado

Gustnado

Fire Whirl

Steam Devil

The Joplin Tornado

On May 22nd, 2011, a massive catastrophe would start. Exactly 158 deaths were confirmed on this date. More than $2 billion in damage at that time which is 2019, is $3.6 billion in damage, but what exactly was the Joplin Tornado? It was a catastrophic EF5-rated multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, late in the afternoon of Sunday, May 22, 2011. To conclude its strength, there was a survey conveyed that categorized Joplin as a violent tornado rated as a high-end EF4. Subsequent damage surveys, however, found evidence of more intense damage, and so the tornado was upgraded to an EF5 with estimated winds over 200 mph 158 people were dead and some 11,50 others were injured. 200 MPH impeded people to escape to safety. For example, a store manager Christopher Lucas herded four employees and 15 customers into a walk-in freezer. He wrapped a bungee cable holding the door shut around his arm until he was sucked out and killed by the tornado. He made a huge sacrifice for these people. Many other institutional buildings were destroyed such as Walmart, Pizza Hut, schools, hospitals, and numerous other businesses and restaurants in the area, which made the damage's cost even more. The tornado carried everything in its path. This caused 25% of Joplin being destroyed.

Before and After

A View of the Joplin Tornado

The Aftermath

The Joplin Tornado was even capable of bringing up a rare fungal infection, zygomycosis, in at least eight serious cases of wound infection among the injured survivors. The tornado also created a new form of response, using social media. This type of response is now known as "Social Media Emergency Management." This tornado severely costed many people thousands of dollars with approximately 7,000 houses and 2,000 buildings destroyed. That was the nightmare of Joplin, Missouri. 

Resources: 

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joplin-mo-slammed-by-twister-116-dead/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/309974386825688764/?lp=true

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Joplin_tornado