We can\u2019t prevent extreme weather, but if we know the risks, our communities can minimize the damage with better construction and early warnings. That knowledge starts with science.<\/p>\n
At Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, our scientists have been making breakthroughs in the development of computer models to help communities around the world assess their risks of extreme weather events, including hurricanes, storm surges, extreme rainfall, drought, and tornadoes. Assessing risk requires understanding the complex forces that create extreme weather, as well as reconstructing climate and weather patterns through history and being able to project how those patterns might change in the future.<\/p>\n
Simulating Storms<\/strong><\/p>\n Hurricanes are among the most extreme weather events on the planet, bringing high winds, heavy rain, and destructive storm surge flooding. Scientists have some understanding of the complex forces within a hurricane, but knowledge of how garden-variety clouds first aggregate into the dangerous swirling systems is still being developed.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an area Suzana Camargo<\/a> and Allison Wing<\/a> have been working on, with a focus on radiative-convective feedbacks and \u201cself-aggregation\u201d \u2013 the spontaneous clustering of individual clouds into larger, more coherent weather systems \u2013 to improve computer models of hurricane behavior that are necessary for assessing risk. Camargo has also been working on indices that connect environmental variables to cyclone frequency.<\/p>\n