How Hurricanes Form in the Sahara Desert

How Hurricanes Form in the Sahara Desert In the United States, the eastern and Gulf coasts are in danger of being slammed by hurricanes from June through November because the waters in the North Atlantic Ocean are typically at their warmest while the Sahara is at its hottest during the same time period. A hurricane is a complex weather system that can be simply explained as a funnel of warm, wet air. It is a non-frontal system whose air has a distinct circular flow. One starts forming  for the United States when hot air over the Sahara is released into the North Atlantic. The Sahara The Sahara, whose land mass is almost that of the continental United States, is the largest â€Å"hot† desert in the world. It is also the second largest desert overall and covers 10 percent of the African continent. (Antarctica is the largest desert in the world and is classified as a â€Å"cold† desert.) In the Sahara, the day-night-day temperatures can swing 30 degrees in a few hours. Great swirling winds over the Sahara carry sand  over the Mediterranean, bringing storms into England, and drop sand on the beaches of eastern Florida.   The Sahara-Hurricane Connection The temperatures of the land mass of western North Africa grows  hot, and the air over this area rises to create the African easterly jet. A column of hot air swirls upward three miles and spreads as it races to the continents  west coast, where it dips toward the ocean. The air picks up moisture from the warm water  and continues its race westward. The flow of the ocean and the spin of Earth combined with the dry winds of the desert and the warm, moist air off the Atlantic horse latitudes make this desert-born weather grow. As a  weather system travels across the Atlantic, it spins and flies over the water and can grow in intensity as it picks up moisture, especially when it arrives in the area of Central America and the warm Eastern Pacific waters. Tropical Storms vs. Hurricanes When wind speeds in the weather system are less than 39 miles per hour, it is classified as a tropical depression. At 39 to 73 miles per hour, it is a tropical storm, if its winds are rotating. This is the point where the World Meteorological Association gives the storm a name, on a predetermined schedule that refreshes names every six years, alternating male and female names in alphabetical order. Next up the storm intensity scale after tropical storms are hurricanes.  The lowest category of hurricanes happens at 74 miles per hour, category 1. Sometimes tropical storms and hurricanes spend their life out over the open ocean, never reaching landfall. When they do hit  land, tropical storms and hurricanes can do great damage through spawning thunderstorms that cause flooding and tornadoes.  When a hurricane  was big enough to cause a lot of damage, then the name is retired and a new name replaces it on the list. Contributed by Associate Writer Sharon Tomlinson

Suzhou River essays

Suzhou River essays Suzhou River is the second film of Lou Ye, who is the sixth generation directors in Chinese mainland. However, he directs this film in a different direction from the works of his Beijing Film Academy contemporaries Zhang Yuan (Beijing Bastards/Beijing Zazhong, 1993) and Wang Xiaoshuai (The Days/Dong-Chun De Rizi, 1993). There are some obvious similarities between this film and Wong Kaiweis ChungKing Express/Chongqing Senlin. The story is about four people: Meimei, Mudan, Mada and a videographer. Meimei, a performing mermaid at a nightclub, illuminates the life of the videographer. However, she slips in and out of his life. Her bouts of unexplained silence and periods of absence deeply trouble him. One day a man called Mada claims that Meimei is his long-lost love. He keeps convincing Meimei that she was his girlfriend before. Here, points of view begin to shift to Mada and Mudan. Mada, a motorcycle courier, was once asked to deliver Mudan, the daughter of a local alcohol merchant, to her aunt. When Mudans father entertains prostitutes, she must be delivered to a relative. Then Mada and Mudan fall in love. But their tender happiness is disrupted. Mada involves with a plan to kidnap Mudan for ransom. This heavily hurts Mudans feelings. She jumps into the Suzhou River, promising to haunt Mada forever as a mermaid. So, Mada is convinced that Mudan is still alive and keeps seeking her for years after he has been released from the jail. He believes that Meimei must be Mudan and keeps seeing Meimei. Finally Mada finds Mudan by chance but soon their bodies are hauled out of the Suzhou River after a drunken motorcycle crash. Here Suzhou River becomes a place for the exchange of birth and death. Meimei is stunned by such a love story when she finds out what Mada told her is true. She leaves the videographer at last with a question: if I leave you someday, would you look for me, like Mada looking for Mudan? ...

Pro's and Con's of Colleges going tobacco free Essay

Pro's and Con's of Colleges going tobacco free - Essay Example The fundamental cause of this tremendous increase in the population of young smokers every year is social influence. Since children and young adults spend a considerable part of their day at schools and colleges, smoking peers and friends at schools and colleges are the prime source of influence for the non-smokers to take up smoking. This imparts the need for the concerned authorities to consider making the colleges tobacco free. The subject of this analysis is the pros and cons of colleges going tobacco free. Other than the fact that I smoke, I do not know a lot about my analysis. After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to know more about the pros and cons of colleges going tobacco free. In order to make informed decision and achieve favorable results, it is customary to evaluate the pros and cons of making the colleges tobacco free. This paper achieves this purpose and inculcates a better understanding of the usefulness of banning tobacco in the colleges. I think my main audie nce will be young college students. I really don’t know what my audience already knows about this topic being that I don’t know much about it myself just yet. I think the statistics I add will be convincing. Some of the questions that I intend to answer in my analysis include; How does this affect smokers rights? When did the policy begin? What colleges/states are mandating this policy? Causes and Effects of Tobacco Ban in Colleges Many colleges around the world have banned tobacco whereas many others are considering banning it. The College of DuPage (COD) is one such colleges that has recently imposed ban on smoking. The main reason why the COD went tobacco free on 6 August 2012 was the immense concern of the college about the health and safety of everybody who is associated with the college including the workers, the students, as well as the visitors. There is considerable amount of research that has found the health risks of both active and passive smoking. Another reason for making the college tobacco free is to cut down the costs associated with cleaning and maintenance of the college, damage caused by the possible outbreak of fire, costs of medical insurance, and the costs of students’ absenteeism (Martin). The pros of tobacco ban in college include improved health and safety of the students, staff, and visitors, cleanliness of the college’s environment, decreased tendency of non-smokers to start smoking, reduced students’ absenteeism, and reduced risk of fire outbreak whereas the cons of tobacco ban in college include absenteeism caused by students’ tendency to smoke off-campus, accuse of discrimination, and students’ and/or staff’s dissatisfaction. Pros of Tobacco Ban in the College There are numerous pros of tobacco ban in the college are numerous. They are discussed as follows: Improved Health and Safety Smoking is a potential risk of health both for the smokers and the non-smoking people around them. Smoking is known to be a cause of lung cancer, mouth cancer, and increases people’s tendency to do heavy smoking and subsequently start substance abuse. Cleanliness Tobacco ban causes the atmosphere to be carbon free thus providing the students, staff, and visitors with a fresh and clean air to breathe. Also, with the tobacco ban imposed, students cannot throw cigarette