The Age Natural Disaster Posters Wild Weather Student Activities Wild Weather 1. Search for an image on the Internet showing damage caused by either cyclone Yasi or cyclone Tracy and insert it in your work. Using this image, complete the Thinking Routine: See—Think— Wonder using the table below. What do you see? What do you think about? What does it make you wonder? 2. World faces growing wild weather threat a. How many people have lost their lives from weather and climate-related events in the last 60 years? b. What is the NatCatService? c. What does the NatCatService show over the past 30 years? d. What is the IDMC? e. Create a line graph to show the number of people forced from their homes because of sudden, natural disasters. f. According to experts why are these disasters getting worse? g. As human impact on the environment grows, what effect will this have on the weather? h. Between 1991 and 2005 which regions of the world were most affected by natural disasters? i. Historically, what has been the worst of Australia’s natural disasters? 3. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_tropical_cyclone_tracks-edit2.jpg and copy the world map of tropical cyclones into your work. Use the PQE approach to describe the spatial distribution of world tropical cyclones. This is as follows: a. P – describe the general pattern shown on the map. b. Q – use appropriate examples and statistics to quantify the pattern. c. E – identifying any exceptions to the general pattern. 4. Some of the worst Question starts a. In pairs, choose one of the following natural events to explore from the poster: cyclone Mahina (north Queensland), cyclone Tracy (Darwin), hurricane Katrina (USA), flooding in China and flooding in Pakistan. b. Without looking at the poster, brainstorm a list of at least 12 questions that you could ask about your chosen natural event. Use these question starts to help you think of interesting questions: Why . ? How would it be different if . ? What are the reasons . ? Suppose that . ? What if . ? What if we knew . ? What is the purpose of . ? What would change if . ? c. Using the poster, find answers to as many of your questions as possible. d. Use the Internet to complete any unanswered questions. 5. How tropical cyclones build their fury a. What are cyclones? b. What speed do the winds need to be? c. Complete the table below to show when the term hurricane, typhoon or cyclone should be used. “severe” or “super” Hurricane Typhoon Tropical cyclone cyclonic storm Location d. Fill in the gaps in the following passage: Tropical cyclones form over ______ roughly between the Tropic of _________ and the ______ of Cancer, beginning where there is already ___-pressure activity disturbing the weather. Moisture ___________ from warm sea water, with a temperature above 26.5 degrees, starts to form a mass of _____. As the water vapour _____, the pressure falls and more air moves in to ____ the “gap”. Under the influence of the ________effect, which is when the Earth’s rotation deflects the incoming air – to the _____ in the northern hemisphere and the ____ in the southern hemisphere – the cloud mass starts to ______ around a low-pressure centre. The rising, _____ air cools and the water _________ as rain. This condensation releases latent heat from the ____ vapour, which is the ______ of energy for the storm. This heat warms and _______the surrounding air so the cloud continues to ____. Because warm air is _______ than cold air, the ________ drops further, and more air is sucked in and __, continuing the cycle. e. If the atmospheric conditions are right the system will strengthen. What does this mean? f. What do meteorologists use satellite imagery for? g. At what point does it officially become a severe tropical cyclone? h. What is the “eye” of the storm? How wide is it usually? i. Severe tropical cyclones can travel the ocean gathering force but when they move over a large land mass they lose their power. Why is that? j. Which part of the tropical cyclone has the most damaging winds? k. Go to http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7533909.stm and watch the animated guide: Hurricanes. Make notes of any new information you discover. 6. Create-a-cane! Try to create the ideal conditions for a hurricane at www.nhc.noaa.gov/outreach/games/canelab.htm by changing the winds, latitude, moisture content and sea temperature. Make a note of what the optimum conditions are to form a hurricane in the table below: Optimum conditions for a hurricane Winds Latitude Moisture content Sea temperature 7. The table below shows Australia’s worst cyclones. Year Name of cyclone Category Location 2011 Cyclone Yasi 5 Mission Beach, Cardwell, QLD 2007 Cyclone George 5 Port Hedland, WA 2006 Cyclone Larry 4 near Innisfail, QLD 2005 Cyclone Ingrid 4/5 Lockhart River, QLD 1997 Cyclone Justin 3 Cairns, QLD 1995 Cyclone Bobby 4 Exmouth, WA 1989 Cyclone Orson 4 Cape Preston, WA 1986 Cyclone Winifred 3 Innisfail, QLD 1978 Cyclone Alby 4 Albany, WA (south west corner of WA) 1975 Cyclone Joan 5 Port Hedland, WA 1974 Cyclone Tracy 4 Darwin , NT 1972 Cyclone Emily 2 Gladstone, QLD 1971 Cyclone Althea 4 Townsville, QLD 1970 Cyclone Ada 4 Whitsunday Islands, QLD especially Daydream, South Molle and Hayman 1918 Cyclone Mackay 4 Mackay, QLD 1918 Cyclone Innisfail 5 Innisfail, QLD 1899 Cyclone Mahina 5 Thursday Island and Bathurst Bay, QLD Source: AustralianGeographic.com.au a. Create a Google Map of Australia to show the location of these tropical cyclones. b. For three of the tropical cyclones add a photograph. c. For a different tropical cyclone add a video clip. (A short video is available at http://support.google.com/maps/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=62843 to help you with this task if needed). 8. Search the Internet for a satellite image of either cyclone Yasi or hurricane Katrina and insert it in your work. a. Give your image a title. b. Label the eye of the cyclone / hurricane. c. Research the width of the eye and add this information to your image. d. Add arrows to your image to show the wind direction (either clockwise or anticlockwise). e. Based on the wind direction is your image from the northern or southern hemisphere? 9. Measuring the force, from 1 to 5 a. The rating a cyclone is given is based on what? b. In a category 5 storm, what causes the most damage? c. When is it cyclone season in Australia? d. What is the most cyclone-prone region of Australia? e. Create a series of five diagrams or drawings to illustrate the typical effects experienced at each category level of a tropical cyclone. 10. Two case studies a. What was the cause of the unusually rainy season at the end of 2010 and early 2011? b. What happened to Queensland? c. For both case studies complete the following: a location map (remember to complete BOLTSS) what conditions did the locations experience prior to the event? describe the event what were the consequences of the event? 11. Storm surges Use the following website www.bom.gov.au/info/cyclone/storm_surge/storm_surge.shtml to answer the questions below. a. Around the world what accounts for a high proportion of the deaths in tropical cyclones? b. What is a storm surge? c. What is a storm tide? d. When are the worst storm tide impacts experienced? e. What can the effects of this be? f. What five characteristics dictate how high the storm surge will be? g. Go to www.nhc.noaa.gov/surge/ and play the animations to contrast the effects of a storm surge hitting a shallow and a steep continental shelf. Summarise your findings. 12. How are cyclones named in Australia? Go to www.ema.gov.au/www/ema/schools.nsf/Page/Get_The_FactsCyclones and scroll down to “Names of cyclones”. a. Describe the process used for the naming of tropical cyclones in Australia. b. Is your name on the list? c. Sometimes the names in the table are replaced. What names are currently marked for replacement? Why do you think they are being replaced? 13. What should you have in an emergency supply kit? Go to www.ready.gov/pack-it-game and play the game. Each time you match a pair make a record of that item in the table below. Emergency supply kit for a tropical cyclone .