Hurricane season begins June 1 and experts from Florida State University and its world renowned meteorology program are available to answer media questions and give perspective to news stories as the season unfolds. Among them:
* Paul Ruscher, associate professor of meteorology, is working with graduate student William Maxham and scientists from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division in Miami on issues related to hurricane intensification changes at landfall. During the past few years, many new high-frequency datasets have become available that allow scientists to study the transition as a hurricane makes landfall. Maxham and Ruscher are examining the small-scale motions that are present in these high-frequency datasets, in an effort to examine how boundary layer processes produce changes in hurricane intensity. In addition, Ruscher directs the K-12 activities of the department of meteorology. Through the EXPLORES! program, the department provides an up-to-date World Wide Web site for teachers and the general public on the status of storms in the Atlantic basin. Updates on the tropics can be found at the group's Web site, http://www.met.fsu.edu/explores/tropical.html.
* James Elsner, professor of geography, is an expert on hurricanes, chaos and predictability. He has written a well-received book on hurricane climatology published by Oxford University Press. His current research is on determining the likelihood of catastrophic hurricane damage along our nation's coastline during the next 10 years. His research is funded by the National Science Foundation and by Florida State University Cornerstone Program.
* Earl J. "Jay" Baker, associate professor of geography and founding member of the National Hurricane Conference, is an expert on the human response to hurricanes. Baker studies how people respond to warnings and evacuation orders and how emergency managers use forecasts to implement evacuation plans.
* James J. O'Brien, a professor of meteorology and oceanography, is the director of the FSU Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies. An internationally known expert on El Nino and related weather phenomena, O'Brien also is the state climatologist of Florida and is a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Letters and Science.
* Robert Deyle, associate professor of urban and regional planning. Principal areas of expertise include mitigation planning and disaster recovery planning. Deyle helped develop a tax model in 1999 that spreads the costs of emergency planning, response and recovery efforts for hurricanes more equitably by requiring those at greatest risk to pay the biggest share. He and a colleague developed a gaming simulation in 2000 for training local officials about hurricane recovery planning, operations and decision making. Workshops using the gaming simulation are offered by the Florida Department of Community Affairs.
* In addition, the FSU department of meteorology shares part of its quarters in the James J. Love Building with the National Weather Service's Tallahassee Weather Forecast Office. The Tallahassee Weather Forecast Office is responsible for forecasts and warnings in a 120-mile radius around Tallahassee, an area that comprises the Eastern Panhandle and Big Bend of Florida, south central and southwest Georgia and the extreme southeastern part of Alabama. Out of the weather service's 122 weather forecast offices, only 12 others are collocated with meteorology departments on university campuses.
RSS