User:Bkowal

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Contents 1 Welcome to Laura's Page 2 Summery of Grading Articles 3 Project Proposal for the Wikipedia: Meteorology Project 4 Rough Draft Wikipedia Article 5 Tracking Hurricanes 6 References

[edit] Welcome to Laura's Page

Welcome to my Wikipedia home page. I hope you enjoy it!

--Here are some interresting links!

• Here's a Link to user: jhorel's page
• Link to Meteorology wikispace page: http://uumet5140.wikispaces.com/
• Laura Kowal's web page http://www.myspace.com/place_to_be

--Below you will find

• A summery of how articles in Wikipedia are Graded
• My project Proposal for the Wikipedia: Meteorology Project
• The rough draft to my Wikipedia Project

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[edit] Summery of Grading Articles

Featured Articles

A wikipedia: Featured article is an article that is reviewed by Wikipedia editors, and after careful analysis are considered. These Wikipedia: Featured article candidates are judged based on accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to the wikipedia: featured article criteria. These articles can be updated if new data comes out on a topic or data becomes outdated, but should otherwise not be touched. These articles will have a small bronze star on the top right corner of the article page.

A

An A article is an article that could be considered to become a Featured article. It is an article that is well-written, clearly understandable, complete, and its length should be sufficient for its topic. It should have accurate and reliable sources preferably from literature and other credible sources. The subject matter shouldn't have any copy write problems as well as appropriate headers to organize the material. There can be a few minor things that where left out but overall it should be complete.

Good Article

A wikipedia: Good article is any article that is of good quality, meets the good article standards, and that it is improbable that it will become featured article candidates. These articles can be nominated by anyone, as well as anyone can review then as long as they aren't a contributor to the article, and they understand the criteria in which makes a good article. A good article is one that needs a sufficient amount of correction to be considered an A or Featured article. A good article is identified by a green circle with a cross in the middle.

B

A B article is an article that needs a lot of work. This type of article is for casual use only. There material within these articles aren't complete, there is missing data, editing isn't accurate or clear, there isn't enough data to support the subject, there are potential copyright problems, and Neutral Point Of View (NPOV) or NO Original Research (NOR). B articles can also have gaps within the research. These articles should not be used by people doing credible research, only the casual reader looking for basic information. They need to be cleaned up and missing data needs to be filled in before these articles can move up to Good article status.

Start

A Start article is an article with a good amount of information, but there is clearly a significant amount of important elements missing. These articles are useful, and provide a good amount of information the only problem being the information isn't as complete as it should be. There can also be errors through out the article. Start articles are ones that need a significant amount of work.

Stub

A Stub article is one that is incomplete, and lacking relevant material. It is typically a shorter article, but can be at any length as long as its not complete. Not a very trustworthy source of information. Stubs will need a lot of work before they are considered A-class articles.

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[edit] Project Proposal for the Wikipedia: Meteorology Project

For my Wikipedia Meteorology and Weather Events project I am going to improve the storm tracking stub. There is already a page dedicated to this topic but it is far from complete and has no references to where it obtained any of its current information. I am interested in writing about this topic because I think it is important for people to understand what meteorologists do when they forecast where a hurricane is headed. I have found some great sources already to aid me in attaining information needed to write an accurate article. I think this will be a great way for me to help express the importance of this technology.

I will focus my article on the science behind tracking these complex storms. I will also talk about the complications of tracking these storms, and why you can't be 100% sure to where they will hit more then a few days out. Then I will provide information on where you can go to get up to date information about hurricane throughout the season. I have even found an interactive site that can teach people how to forecast their own hurricane. I feel this will help them to really understand the concepts. My goal is to provide useful information to wikipedians, to help them to understand the importance of tracking hurricanes and how unpredictable these storms can be.

References I will used for my purposed article.

NOAA: http://www.stormtracker.noaa.gov/

Tropical Storms, worldwide: http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/tropical.html

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

hurricanetrack.com: http://www.hurricanetrack.com/

Science Netlinks: http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?DocID=314

Miami science: http://www.miamisci.org/hurricane/instructions.html

[edit] Rough Draft Wikipedia Article

[edit] Tracking Hurricanes

The art and science of tracking hurricanes is a very important element of keeping Americans safe that live on the coasts. The National Hurricane Center (NHC), which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), is responsible for forecasting for the eastern Pacific, the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico.

Pinpointing the exact location of where a hurricane has formed, or where it is at a specific moment in time, is a considerably simpler process today due to advances in technology, but predicting where and when the storm might make landfall is a much harder task. This is remarkably more difficult because hurricanes can change direction, speed, and intensity without warning.

The ability to better understand hurricanes and the probability of where they might travel has only been made possible due to continuous advancements in technology, and the continuous search for a better understanding of the weather. Some of these advances include satellites, radar, and aviation^[1]. Within the past 12 years technology has also greatly improved the ability to forecast a hurricane’s ‘final’ destination ^[2]. Together these four advances have helped to save millions of lives all over the globe. Although tragedies still happen, the ability to predict and limit the amount of tragedies that actually occur is a phenomenal accomplishment.

Satellites are one of the major technological advances that have helped to shape tracking hurricanes today. Before there were satellites, meteorologists had to rely on ships, tropical island weather observers, and coastal radars to get ‘accurate’ information about where a hurricane was located. From the information provided by these sources it was very hard to exactly pinpoint where the storm would travel next. Innovations such as the first satellite, TIROS in the 1960s, allowed meteorologists to better know where hurricanes were forming and it led to the technology that helps meteorologists to forecast today ^[3]. Although the first satellites were helpful in forecasting, they also sparked interest in understanding the characteristics of hurricanes compared to their intensities. Satellites provide the ability to loop several satellite images together to see the projected path and development of these storms. Since the GOES series of satellites was launched, meteorologists have a clearer image of the weather over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. A combination of the American GOES satellites with the European and Japanese satellites allows global coverage of the earth.

Like satellites, Doppler radar has helped meteorologists in understanding the intensity of storms throughout the life cycle of the hurricane. Doppler radar helps meteorologists to understand the movement, potential tornado activity, and estimated wind speeds of the actual storm. This information will help meteorologists to obtain a more in-depth look at the characteristics of each individual cyclone. This will in turn allow meteorologists to understand the types of warnings they will need to announce when the storm approaches land. It will also allow hurricane forecasters to understand the true velocity of the storm, which will indicate initial conditions in order to accurately predict where the storm could eventually make landfall.

Although we have amazing technology within the field of remote sensing, one of the major innovations is being able to use aviation. Flying into these storms, and being able to drop soundings to obtain important information about the structure of these hurricanes is very important. Flying aircraft into the eye of a hurricane began during War World II, when Army Air Corps and Navy pilots would fly into these storms to collect data about where the hurricanes were located and their intensities ^[4]. Since this time, reconnaissance aircraft are continually being used to obtain specific information about the characteristics of these storms and this information is later translated to the NHC and the weather channel. The pilots for these missions are hired from the Air Force and through NOAA. These aircraft missions obtain information for NOAA’s scientists, by collecting environmental, geographic, and atmospheric data that provide information about tornadoes, hurricanes, and other cyclone research. The soundings that these aircraft drop record wind speed and direction, air pressure, temperature, and altitude.

Finally a more accurate forecast model improved from the original model was also created by the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). The climate and persistence (CLIPER) model is what has made forecasting hurricanes a more reliable science. The CLIPER model is more accurate at forecasting hurricanes because it takes into account more feasible initial conditions, and it calculates the data at a higher resolution then the previous model (KBR). The KBR model was accurate when forecasting severe hurricanes, but wasn’t sufficient for calculating what would happen to a weaker storm. The CLIPER model helps to fix this problem because it uses more in-depth details of the vortex within the storm. The new model looks more deeply into the size, intensity, and wind strength obtained by NHC bulletins. It also considers the low-level maximum winds, accurate model initialization, time integration of the model, and dissemination of the forecast results to National Meteorological Center (NMC) and NHC. ^[5]

These four methods combined help to assist meteorologists in creating the best forecasts possible for hurricane tracking. The combined efforts to obtain accurate data and to use a model that is more precise than ever before allow meteorologists to give warnings to coastal regions days in advance and in return save lives.

If you would like to try and learn to forecast hurricanes there is a handy web site that teaches you how to do so. Simply go to:

http://www.miamisci.org/hurricane/instructions.html

and follow the directions. You can also view up-to-date information about current hurricanes at:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

also if you want to obtain an up to date Storm Tracker Demonstration you can go to the following link to obtain that

http://www.stormtracker.noaa.gov/

Finally you can go to:

http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/tropical.html

to obtain information about tracking hurricanes all over the globe.

[edit] References