User:Assassindrake/BlogEntry: 2011 July 16 14:53:19 UTC

New Hurricane Scale in the US
This week a new measurement system for hurricanes was patented in the US.

The United States has been particularly concerned with the destructive power of hurricanes since the 2005 disaster in New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina. This was a big issue because of the confusion with the current Saffir-Simpson scale used in the US. Under the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale (SSHS), a hurricane with stronger maximum winds garners a higher rating. This is somewhat erroneous way of looking at tropical storms because the storm surge was the primary destructive force in New Orleans.

The new measurement system, the integrated kinetic energy (IKE) scale, takes into consideration the total destructive force of storms in its rating. This is an important difference from the SSHS because a broad storm with weaker winds has a greater destructive potential than a small storm with high winds near the core. Hopefully, this will start a global move in categorizing tropical storms in a way that better estimates human response needed.

As a side note: the NOAA scientist, Dr. Mark Powell, who developed the IKE scale, is also actively working on sustainable wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico and last year constructed and moved into a high performance green home in Florida. You can read his green building blog here.

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