Recently researchers at Florida State University have noticed an interesting ozone connection: hurricanes intensity. In this NASA-funded study, Xiaolei Zou and Yonghui Wu discovered that as a hurricane strengthens, the ozone levels in and around it fall. And this appears to be true for the entire storm, not just at one certain height.

The pair looked at data from 12 hurricanes, including 2001’s Hurricane Erin, and Isabel from 2003, using the NASA’s Satellite “Earth Probe/TOMS”, which stands for Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer. They compared their data to that gathered by NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The Florida State researchers found that a hurricane’s spin, air pressure, and ozone are all related. One of the reasons for the ozone drop in the area of the storm, they believe, is that rising air pulls surface, or tropospheric, ozone into the hurricane’s upper reaches, where it replaces the higher concentration usually found there. They noted that, by looking just at ozone data, they could very clearly make out the hurricane’s eye, an observation that was supported by comparing eyewall data from the Hurricane Center. Zou and Wu now hope that looking at the ozone readings can help forecasters better pinpoint the eye, and predict the storm’s track and intensity more accurately, even if the eye region is obscured by clouds.

To look at an Ozone reading from Hurricane Erin, head on over to our website: www.weathernotebook.org, where you can also peruse any of our past stories.

The Weather Notebook is generously supported by Subaru of America. We are produced in New Hampshire by the Mount Washington Observatory.

Today's Links

NASA Link
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/ozone_drop.html