Cross the hurricane

Author: (USA) Carl / (USA) Degnan Illustration / Xie Hui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: The typhoon (known as hurricane in the Atlantic), which forms over tropical oceans, is a massive atmospheric vortex. The fierce winds and torrential rains it brings often cause severe losses to life and property in coastal areas. However, for some regions, typhoon rains are an indispensable source of water. Growing up in a small town on the southeastern coast, I had to endure the "baptism" of typhoons every summer. What left a deep impression on me was a summer when a powerful typhoon overturned my neighbor's small tiled house, claiming the lives of two playmates. It was out of fascination with this giant monster, the typhoon, that I began to study and research meteorology. Today, meteorologists have established millions of weather stations across the globe, using various instruments to measure air temperature, the amount of water vapor in the air, rainfall and snowfall, wind direction and speed, cloud cover, and cloud height, among other things. They utilize balloons, airplanes, rockets, and other detection tools to measure changes in the entire atmosphere, especially meteorological satellites, which provide vivid images of the entire cloud system over the Earth in real-time, leaving almost no typhoon undetected. With the help of fast-running, high-capacity computers, meteorologists can process and analyze vast amounts of observational data, simulate the movement and changes of typhoons using mathematical methods, and predict when and where they will land, as well as the intensity of wind and rain along their paths. Meteorologists have also discovered that the paths and number of typhoon landings vary each summer, and the intensity of wind and rain they bring also differs. Therefore, accurately predicting typhoons remains a significant challenge. Could global warming alter the frequency of typhoon occurrences, their intensity, or even their paths? There are still countless mysteries in the Earth's atmosphere waiting for us to explore. A hurricane is raging over the tropical ocean, and a strange yellow object is being swept into the vortex. It was a hot air balloon. It was an airplane. It was the magical school bus! Miss Fairchild's class didn't visit the meteorological observatory for a tour but instead experienced the hurricane firsthand from land, sea, and air. In this best-selling, newly updated science book, readers can learn how changes in the air affect the weather. When you find yourself in the midst of a hurricane, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning will take on a whole new look!