Community Vulnerability to Tropical Cyclones: Cairns, 1996–2000

This paper is a partial discussion of a four-year study that investigated the vulnerability of the people living in the Cairns region to the tropical cyclone hazard. The longitudinal case study, focussing on the Cairns Northern Beaches area, was unique in that it included a social and societal `pre-cyclone impact' evaluation of various resident communities within the region, and then two consecutive `post-cyclone impact' studies. The primary research method supported an inductive qualitative approach to the collection and analysis of survey data. Some quantitative methods were invoked to support qualitative research findings. Survey data was collected in five separate questionnaire-based social surveys that were administered between 1996 and 2000. During the study, residents experiencedthe direct impact of two land-falling tropical cyclones. In addition to this, targeted andfocussed tropical cyclone awareness education was made increasingly available withinthe community. The social and demographic attributes that influence the individual'sperception of risk and contribute to our understanding of community vulnerability were examined and evaluated. Changes in the residents' attitudes, cyclone preparednessbehaviours and willingness to respond to cyclone warnings were monitored and measured. Analysis of early survey data indicated that community residents generally had some knowledge of cyclones but a limited understanding of cyclone processes and very little direct personal experience of the cyclone hazard. Individually and collectively, residents frequently demonstrated a biased perception of the risks associated with cyclones. The resident community was shown to be fragmented, with limited support being available to individual households. Initially, residents were found to be poorly prepared for cyclones and unlikely to respond to warnings appropriately. It appeared that, in the event of a land-falling tropical cyclone impacting the area, the community was highly vulnerable to unnecessary loss of property, livelihood and – in extreme circumstances – life. By 2000, Cairns community residents were somewhat better informed about cyclones and certainly more experienced. This paper provides some insight into how cyclone experience and education may synergisticly have contributed to a change in risk perceptions and a reduction in the vulnerability of Cairns residents to the tropical cyclone and storm surge hazards.     

Interannual variability of tropical cyclone activity along the Pacific coast of North America

The interannual variability of near-coastal eastern North Pacific tropical cyclones is described using a data set of cyclone tracks constructed from U.S. and Mexican oceanic and atmospheric reports for the period 1951-2006. Near-coastal cyclone counts are enumerated monthly, allowing us to distinguish interannual variability during different phases of the May-November tropical cyclone season. In these data more tropical cyclones affect the Pacific coast in May-July, the early months of the tropical cyclone season, during La Niña years, when equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures are anomalously cool, than during El Niño years. The difference in early season cyclone counts between La Niña and El Niño years was particularly pronounced during the mid-twentieth century epoch when cool equatorial temperatures were enhanced as described by an index of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Composite maps from years with high and low near-coastal cyclone counts show that the atmospheric circulation anomalies associated with cool sea surface temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific are consistent with preferential steering of tropical cyclones northeastward toward the west coast of Mexico.     

Climatology of landfalling tropical cyclones in Bangladesh 1877–2003

Bangladesh is highly susceptible to tropical cyclones. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of climatological studies on the tropical cyclones of Bangladesh. The Global Tropical Cyclone Climatic Atlas (GTCCA) lists historical storm track information for all the seven tropical cyclone ocean basins including the North Indian Ocean. Using GIS, tropical cyclones that made landfall in Bangladesh during 1877–2003 are identified and examined from the climatological perspective. For the convenience of study, the coast of Bangladesh is divided into five segments and comparisons are made among the coastal segments in terms of cyclone landfall and vulnerability. There is a large variability in the year-to-year occurrence of landfalling tropical cyclones in Bangladesh. Most of the tropical cyclones (70%) hit in the months of May–June and October–November generally show the well-known pattern of pre- and post-monsoon cyclone seasons in that region.     

Identification of clusters in tropical cyclone tracks of North Indian Ocean

Tropical cyclones are a key climate-related hazard in South Asia. Assessment of the risk of cyclone impacts requires a comprehensive characterization of historical cyclone climatology. This study analyzes the tracks of tropical cyclones in the North Indian Ocean. Based on their spatial characteristics, cyclone tracks appear to be grouped into five well-defined clusters. These clusters correspond to distinct regions of cyclonic activity and exhibit differences in characteristics such as genesis location, probability of landfall, duration, and maximum intensity. Some of the identified clusters appear particularly important with regard to impacts because events in these clusters have greater landfall probability and are more intense. The clustering approach is likely to provide useful insights for the characterization of cyclone risk.     

China’s tropical cyclone disaster risk source analysis based on the gray density clustering

In recent years, tropical cyclones on the Pacific Northwest have decreased. We cannot infer that tropical cyclones impact China have reduced, because the Pacific Northwest is not homogeneous, and the variation characteristics of tropical cyclones in different sea areas are not clear. This paper uses gray relational density clustering algorithm to cluster tropical cyclone data sets between 1949 and 2008, according to the generated position of tropical cyclones, generated density and the possibility of landing. The Pacific Northwest is divided into different sea areas. Then, we analyze the risk of tropical cyclones generated in these sea areas. The results show that the probability of tropical cyclones landing generated in some sea areas is very high, reached 74 %, but the probability of tropical cyclones landing generated in other sea areas is only 2 %. Tropical cyclones generated in some sea areas are more likely to develop into typhoons, strong typhoons and so on, but the intensity of tropical cyclones generated in other sea areas is lower, there is little risk for China. Finally, according to the climate change stage trends, we divide the period 1949–2008 into three stages and analyze the tropical cyclone risk of each sea areas.     

Five hundred years of hurricanes in the Caribbean: Their relationship with global climatic variabilities

A time series of hurricanes in the Caribbean basin extending from 1500 to 1990 is investigated with the purpose of establishing the years, time of year, and locations that have been hit by tropical cyclones. The Windward Islands show higher hurricane frequency earlier in the season (July–August) than the Leeward Islands and the Greater Antilles (September–October). In the course of the centuries a certain shift towards a later onset and peak of the season might have occurred, but imperfect early observations subtract validity from this finding. For the same reason it is difficult to prove that hurricane frequency has increased in later centuries. Nevertheless, a concentration of observed hurricanes in particular years, or clusters of years, stands out in the series and allows to distinguish periods of heightened or lowered hurricane activity. When comparisons are made with major climatic fluctuations in the tropical belt, it becomes evident that lesser numbers of hurricanes occur during El Niño conditions in the tropical Pacific and increased numbers tend to develop during Anti-Niño episodes. It also seems that years of high hurricane incidence occur in a conspicuous temporal vicinity to major El Niño events, which suggests brisk changes in ocean/atmosphere conditions (Niño to Anti Niño, or vice versa) theoretically explained by cusp catastrophe or chaos theory.     

Modern and historical tropical cyclone and tsunami deposits at the coast of Myanmar: Implications for their identification and preservation in the geological record

The catastrophic storm surge of tropical cyclone Nargis in May 2008 demonstrated Myanmar's exposure to coastal flooding. The investigation of sediments left by tropical cyclone Nargis and its predecessors is an important contribution to prepare for the impact of future tropical cyclones and tsunamis in the region, because they may extend the database for long-term hazard assessment beyond the relatively short instrumental and historical record. This study, for the first time, presents deposits of modern and historical tropical cyclones and tsunamis from the coast of Myanmar. The aim is to establish regional sedimentary characteristics that may help to identify and discriminate cyclones and tsunamis in the geological record, and to document post-depositional changes due to tropical weathering in the first years after deposition. These findings if used to interpret older deposits will extend the existing instrumental record of flooding events in Myanmar. Evaluating deposits that can be related to specific events, such as the 2006 tropical cyclone Mala and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, indicates similar sedimentary characteristics for both types of sediments. Landward thinning and fining trends, littoral sediment sources and sharp lower contacts allow for the differentiation from underlying deposits, while discrimination between tropical cyclone and tsunami origin is challenging based on the applied methods. The modern analogues also demonstrate a rather low preservation potential of the sand sheets due to carbonate dissolution, formation of organic top soils, and coastal erosion. However, in coastal depressions sand sheets of sufficient thickness (>10 cm) may be preserved where the shoreline is prograding or stable. In the most seaward swale of a beach-ridge plain at the Rakhine coast, two sand sheets have been identified in addition to the deposits of 2006 tropical cyclone Mala. Based on a combination of optically stimulated luminescence, radiocarbon and ¹³⁷Cs dating, the younger sand layer is related to 1982 tropical cyclone Gwa, while the older sand layer is most probably the result of an event that took place prior to 1950. Comparison with historical records indicates that the archive is only sensitive to tropical cyclones of category 4 (or higher) with landfall directly in or a few tens of kilometres north of the study area. While the presented tropical cyclone records are restricted to the last 100 years, optically stimulated luminescence ages of the beach ridges indicate that the swales landward of the one investigated in this study might provide tropical cyclone information for at least the past 700 years.     

Editorial

The Far North Queensland city of Cairns has a significant history of exposureto the impact of a wide range of natural hazards, most notably tropical cyclones.A program of publicly funded research, using Cairns as its `living laboratory'and aimed at understanding the risks posed by these hazards was a central partof Australia's involvement in the International Decade for Natural DisasterReduction. This program involved input from all three levels of governmentin Australia – national, state and local – as well as academe, industry and the Cairns community.This paper outlines the background to this program of research and an overview ofthe Cairns community that provides context for the other papers in this issue. Whilemuch of the scientific effort has been focused on developing a better understandingof the hazard phenomena involved, an important outcome of the Cairns research hasbeen the evolution of techniques by which to develop a better understanding of thecommunity at risk and strategies by which to reduce their risk.     

Experimental superensemble forecasts of tropical cyclones over the Bay of Bengal

This study entails the implementation of an experimental real time forecast capability for tropical cyclones over the Bay of Bengal basin of North Indian Ocean. This work is being built on the experience gained from a number of recent studies using the concept of superensemble developed at the Florida State University (FSU). Real time hurricane forecasts are one of the major components of superensemble modeling at FSU. The superensemble approach of training followed by real time forecasts produces the best forecasts for tracks and intensity (up to 5 days) of Atlantic hurricanes and Pacific typhoons. Improvements in track forecasts of about 25–35% compared to current operational forecast models has been noted over the Atlantic Ocean basin. The intensity forecasts for hurricanes are only marginally better than the best models. In this paper, we address tropical cyclone forecasts over the Bay of Bengal for the years 1996–2000. The main result from this study is that the position and intensity errors for tropical cyclone forecasts over the Bay of Bengal from the multimodel superensemble are generally less than those of all of the participating models during 1- to 3-day forecasts. Some of the major tropical cyclones, such as the November 1996 Andhra Pradesh cyclone and October 1999 Orissa super cyclone were well handled by this superensemble approach. A conclusion from this study is that the proposed approach may be a viable way to construct improved forecasts of Bay of Bengal tropical cyclone positions and intensity.     

Landslide susceptibility mapping using precipitation data,Mazandaran Province,north of Iran

A tropical cyclone was formed over central northern Africa near Egypt, Libya and Crete, and it moved and deepened toward the north–northeast; meanwhile, the storm destroyed many regions in the west, southwest and central of Turkey. The cyclone carried huge dust from the north of Africa to Turkey and reduced the visibility to less than 1 km and raised the wind speed. As a result of severe storm, some meteorological stations have new extreme values that the strongest wind speed measured was 81 knots in the central region of Turkey. Medicane with wind speed 81 knots especially over Turkey is a rare event. This devastating cyclone carried exceptionally very strong winds (>80 kts) with favorable conditions to follow windstorm conceptual model. The cyclone caused adverse conditions such as excessive injuries, fatal incidents and forest fires. Mesoscale vortex formed and affected particularly the middle and western regions of Turkey. The vertical thermodynamic structure of storm is compared with April values of 40 years of datasets over Istanbul. Moreover, four different winds {measurement masts} of Istanbul Atatürk Airport are used for the microscale analysis of different meteorological parameters during deepened pressure level. In addition, divergence and vorticity of stormy weather are discussed in details during the effective time period of storm by solving equations and validated using ERA-40 reanalysis. We obtained many monitoring data sources such as ground base, radar, radiosonde and satellite display the values of the intensity of wind speed caused by cyclones of tropics have revealed similarities.     

Fine assessment of tropical cyclone disasters based on GIS and SVM in Zhejiang Province, China

Tropical cyclones represent major natural disasters in low- and mid-latitude coastal areas. Effective assessment of tropical cyclone disasters provides a scientific reference for the formulation of tropical cyclone prevention and disaster-relief measures. Tropical cyclone disasters in Zhejiang Province are mainly studied based on GIS technology, by considering disaster-causing factors, disaster-affected bodies, the disaster-formative environment, and spatial distribution of disaster prevention and relief capacity. In light of an uncertain nonlinear relationship between assessment factors and disaster factors, we used support vector machines to establish a fine, quantitative assessment model. This model evaluates the following disaster indices: Disaster-affected population, direct economic loss, affected crop area, and number of damaged houses resulting from a tropical cyclone disaster in Zhejiang, with the county as basic assessment unit. Assessment of tropical cyclone No. 0908 shows that the developed assessment model is able to accurately evaluate the geographical distribution of losses caused by a tropical cyclone.     

Tropical cyclone activity in global warming scenario

Research efforts focused on assessing the potential for changes in tropical cyclone activity in the greenhouse-warmed climate have progressed since the IPCC assessment in 1996. Vulnerability to tropical cyclones becoming more pronounced due to the fastest population growth in tropical coastal regions makes it practically important to explore possible changes in tropical cyclone activity due to global warming. This paper investigates the tropical cyclone activity over whole globe and also individually over six different ocean basins. The parameters like storm frequency, storm duration, maximum intensity attained and location of formation of storm have been examined over the past 30-year period from 1977 to 2006. Of all, the north Atlantic Ocean shows a significant increasing trend in storm frequency and storm days, especially for intense cyclones. Lifetime of intense tropical cyclones over south Indian Ocean has been increased. The intense cyclonic activity over north Atlantic, south-west Pacific, north and south Indian Ocean has been increased in recent 15 years as compared to previous 15 years, whereas in the east and west-north Pacific it is decreased, instead weak cyclone activity has been increased there. Examination of maximum intensity shows that cyclones are becoming more and more intense over the south Indian Ocean with the highest rate. The study of the change in the cyclogenesis events in the recent 15 years shows more increase in the north Atlantic. The Arabian Sea experiences increase in the cyclogenesis in general, whereas Bay of Bengal witnesses decrease in these events. Shrinking of cyclogenesis region occurs in the east-north Pacific and south-west Pacific, whereas expansion occurs in west-north Pacific. The change in cyclogenesis events and their spatial distribution in association with the meteorological parameters like sea surface temperature (SST), vertical wind shear has been studied for Indian Ocean. The increase in SST and decrease in wind shear correspond to increase in the cyclogenesis events and vice versa for north Indian Ocean; however, for south Indian Ocean, it is not one to one.     

Assessment of economic losses from tropical cyclone disasters based on PCA-BP

Tropical cyclones are the most common natural disasters in coastal regions and are the most costly in terms of economic losses. Economic loss assessment is the basis for disaster prevention and alleviation and for insurance indemnification. We use data from 1970 to 2008 for Zhejiang Province, China, in this study evaluating economic losses. We convert direct economic losses from tropical cyclone disasters in Zhejiang Province into indices of direct economic losses. To establish our assessment model, we process disaster-inducing assessment factors, disaster-formative environments and disaster-affected bodies using the principal component analysis method, and we abstract the principal component as the input of a BP neural network model. We found in the actual assessments of five tropical cyclones affecting Zhejiang Province in 2007 and 2008 that the post-disaster loss assessment values of tropical cyclones were higher than the actual losses, but that for more severe storms, the gap was smaller. This reflects the beneficial effect of efforts toward disaster prevention and alleviation for severe tropical cyclones. Pre-assessments based on relatively accurate forecast values of wind and precipitation at the start of a tropical cyclone have been in accordance with the post-disaster assessment values, while the pre-assessment results using less accurate forecast values have been unsatisfactory. Therefore, this model can be applied in the actual assessment of direct economic loss from tropical cyclone damage, but increasingly accurate forecasting of wind and precipitation remains crucial to improving the accuracy of pre-assessments.     

Developing a new sinuosity index for cyclone tracks in the tropical South Pacific

This paper introduces a new metric for tropical cyclone track shape within the tropical South Pacific (TSP) basin, based on measurements of track sinuosity. A sinuosity index (SI) is developed by applying a simple cube-root transformation to original track sinuosity values. Based on the resulting near-normal SI distribution, an ordinal four-category (quartile) naming system is then proposed for track-type classification. Track sinuosity patterns are also investigated over the last four decades (1970–2008). Analytical findings suggest that cyclone track sinuosity is an important parameter influencing the potential vulnerability of island archipelagoes to cyclone hazard. Principally, sinuously moving cyclones show some tendency for greater longevity and intensity than straighter-tracking storms and make up a larger proportion of systems forming in the western tropical South Pacific than those generated farther east. Although no long-term statistical trend can be established, track sinuosity is highly variable through time, implying that the TSP basin and the islands therein will continue to experience large but irregular inter-annual fluctuations in cyclone track morphology.     

Meteorological Office, Pune-411 005

Natural disasters like floods, tornadoes, tropicalcyclones, heat and cold wavewreak havoc and cause tremendous loss ofproperty all over the world. Most ofthe natural disasters are either dueto weather or are triggered due toweather related processes.Extreme weather events claimed thousands oflives and caused damage on vastscale. Recent super cyclone which affectedOrissa in 1999, Bangladesh cyclone of1970 and Hurricane Andrew in 1992 areexamples of some of the more damagingtropical cyclones which affected developingas well as the developed world. Heatand cold waves are also extreme events,which cause enormous losses in terms oflives lost and human discomfort and ailmentsarising out of them. The heat waveof 1995 and 1998 are still fresh in the mindof the Indian public. The estimated lossof human lives due to heat wave in 1998 was morethan 15,000. Economic losses asa result of these disasters and in particular inassociation with tropical cyclones haveincreased enormously over the last three decades.During 1961–1991, total loss oflives from drought alone was 1,333,728 overthe whole world. In terms of economiclosses, there is 8–10 fold increase from thebase figure of 1960. The socio-economicimpact of natural disaster is complex dependingupon the vulnerability of the placeand mitigation strategies that are put in place.Meteorology plays a crucial role in forewarningpeople about the severe/extremeweather systems and a constant endeavour by themeteorological services worldover has gone a long way towards minimizing thelosses caused by natural disasters.The paper summarises the natural disasterstatistics over south Asia and the possibleprediction strategies for combating theirsocio-economic impacts.     

The role of mid-level vortex in the intensification and weakening of tropical cyclones

The present study examines the dynamics of mid-tropospheric vortex during cyclogenesis and quantifies the importance of such vortex developments in the intensification of tropical cyclone. The genesis of tropical cyclones are investigated based on two most widely accepted theories that explain the mechanism of cyclone formation namely ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ dynamics. The Weather Research and Forecast model is employed to generate high resolution dataset required for analysis. The development of the mid-level vortex was analyzed with regard to the evolution of potential vorticity (PV), relative vorticity (RV) and vertical wind shear. Two tropical cyclones which include the developing cyclone, Hudhud and the non-developing cyclone, Helen are considered. Further, Hudhud and Helen, is compared to a deep depression formed over Bay of Bengal to highlight the significance of the mid-level vortex in the genesis of a tropical cyclone. Major results obtained are as follows: stronger positive PV anomalies are noticed over upper and lower levels of troposphere near the storm center for Hudhud as compared to Helen and the depression; Constructive interference in upper and lower level positive PV anomaly maxima resulted in the intensification of Hudhud. For Hudhud, the evolution of RV follows ‘top-down’ dynamics, in which the growth starts from the middle troposphere and then progresses downwards. As for Helen, RV growth seems to follow ‘bottom-up’ mechanism initiating growth from the lower troposphere. Though, the growth of RV for the depression initiates from mid-troposphere, rapid dissipation of mid-level vortex destabilizes the system. It is found that the formation mid-level vortex in the genesis phase is significantly important for the intensification of the storm.     

The Flood Risk in Cairns

The Cairns region, on the north tropical coast of Queensland, forms part of the wettestarea in Australia, with mean annual rainfalls of 2,000 to 4,000 mm. During the summerand early autumn months, intense rainfalls associated with cyclones and other tropicalweather influences persist for several days, and can produce severe flooding in theBarron, Mulgrave and Russell Rivers and smaller drainage systems. There is oftensome loss of life and the damage to buildings, transport infrastructure, sugar cane andother agricultural crops can easily exceed 100 million. Very high intensity rainfallsover shorter periods, only a few hours, also present a significant urban flash flood risk,as happened at Townsville City, some 300 km to the south of Cairns, in January 1998.Despite the use of good floodplain management practices in recent decades, the combinedrisk of severe river floods and urban drainage floods is relatively high when comparedwith the other more damaging, but less frequent, natural hazards.     

On the recent global mean sea level changes: Trend extraction and El Niño's impact

The spatial sampling offered by TOPEX and Jason series of satellite radar altimeters and its continuity during the last twenty years are major assets to provide an improved vision of the global mean sea level (GMSL). The objective of this paper is to examine the recent GMSL variations (1993–2012) and to investigate the correlation between the GMSL and ENSO (El Niño-southern oscillation) episodes. For this purpose, a mean sea level anomalies time series, obtained from TOPEX, Jason-1 and Jason-2 measurements, is used to determine the trend of GMSL changes by using a simplified form of an unobserved components model (namely UCM). Then, to investigate the impact of the ENSO phenomenon on the GMSL changes, we considered the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) index over the Niño3 region (5N–5S 150W–90W). Cross wavelet transform and wavelet coherence analysis are performed to expose common power between the GMSL changes and the SSTA index and their relative phase in the time–frequency space. The results indicate that there are in the estimated GMSL's trend a number of fluctuations over short periods that are least partly related to the El Niño/La Niña episodes. Cross wavelet transform and wavelet coherence analysis indicate that a significant correlation between GMSL and ENSO occurred during 1997–1998, 2006–2007, 2009–2010 El Niño events and 2007–2008 and 2010–2011 La Niña ones. All these areas show in-phase relationship, suggesting that GMSL and SSTA index vary synchronously.     

SPH-based simulation of flow process of a landslide at Hongao landfill in China

The cyclones over Bay of Bengal (BoB) have varied socio-economic impacts and meteorological importance. There are considerable uncertainties in predicting the track and intensity of cyclonic systems in the BoB. The present study examines the cyclogenesis characteristics over the BoB and addresses the regional impacts and their importance in terms of intensification of cyclones. An analysis of cyclone track data from 1971–2013 reveals that the cyclones generated in Andaman Sea (a regional sea of BoB) and propagating through central BoB sustain maximum life time. Furthermore, within the BoB, the cyclones originated from Andaman Sea are the most intensified and characterized by highest cyclogenesis potential index. Interestingly, we have found that higher value of mid-tropospheric relative humidity over Andaman Sea during the cyclone period is enhancing the cyclone’s intensity. Climatologically also the Andaman Sea is dominated by higher values of mid-tropospheric relative humidity compared to other regions of BoB. There is no significant distinction between Andaman Sea and rest of the BoB for other meteorological and oceanic parameters that supports cyclogenesis. Climatologically dominant east–west asymmetry in mid-tropospheric relative humidity is enhancing the intensity of cyclones from Andaman Sea. The results will be helpful in understanding the processes of cyclone intensification and useful in the statistical and dynamical prediction of cyclones.