Prospect Hill Academy
Marine Science
Name ____________________________
Date _______________
DO NOW - What do you already know about hurricanes? (What are they? What causes them? What are their impacts? Why was hurricane Katrina so destructive?)
Katrina Day By Day – National Geographic
What happened to the size and intensity of Katrina from 8/24 to 8/28 as it moved through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico?
What is the difference between a category I and a category V hurricane?
How fast were the winds of Katrina when it hits land? _____________ What category? ______________
What is the function of a levee?
What happened when the levees broke?
Cosmic journeys – super hurricanes (season 1, episode 5)
What happened to Ike as it travelled through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico?
What caused most of the damage to Galveston during the hurricane?

What is a storm surge?
What is an area of low pressure?
Why do hurricanes spin?
What is the ‘eye’ of the hurricane?
How does water temperature impact hurricane strength?
Hurricanes are giant, spiraling tropical storms that can pack wind speeds of over 160 miles an hour and unleash more than 2.4 trillion gallons of rain a day. These same tropical storms are known as cyclones in the northern Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, and as typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean’s hurricane season peaks from mid-August to late October and averages five to six hurricanes per year.
Hurricanes begin as tropical disturbances in warm ocean waters with surface temperatures of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit. These low pressure systems are fed by energy from the warm seas. When a storm’s sustained wind speeds reach 74 miles an hour it becomes a hurricane and earns a category rating of 1 to 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
Hurricanes are enormous heat engines that generate energy on a staggering scale. They draw heat from warm, moist ocean air and release it through condensation of water vapor in thunderstorms. Hurricanes spin around a low-pressure center known as the “eye.” Rising air makes this 20- to 30-mile-wide area calm. But the eye is surrounded by a circular “eye wall” that hosts the storm’s strongest winds and rain.
These storms bring destruction ashore in many different ways. When a hurricane makes landfall it often produces a devastating storm surge that can reach 20 feet high and extend nearly 100 miles. Ninety percent of all hurricane deaths result from storm surges. A hurricane’s high winds are also destructive and may spawn tornadoes. Torrential rains cause further damage by spawning floods and landslides, which may occur many miles inland.
The best defense against a hurricane is an accurate forecast that gives people time to get out of its way. The
National Hurricane Center issues hurricane watches for storms that may endanger communities, and hurricane warnings for storms that will make landfall within 24 hours.
SOURCE: www.nationalgeographic.com

HOMEWORK – 11/1/2010
Tasha Eichenseher in New Orleans, National Geographic News , Published August 29, 2010
Standing among the overgrown lots and derelict homes of New Orleans’
Lower Ninth Ward, it is hard to imagine that the wetland abutting this neighborhood used to be a fisherman’s paradise, houseboat community, and retreat destination.
Bayou Bienvenue is now a degraded
30,000-acre swampy wasteland confined by years of flood management engineering—the
Industrial Canal to the west, the Gulf
Intracoastal Waterway to the north, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet
(MRGO) to the east, and an embankment to the south protecting the Lower Ninth Ward, home to about 18,000 people before Hurricane Katrina flooded the area in 2005.
The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans (SWBNO), St. Bernard Parish, the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers , and several local nonprofits, including a Sierra Club chapter , have developed plans to bring the bayou, and its hurricane protection benefits, back to life. “When you start protecting wetlands, you protect against storm surge,” explains Darryl Malek-Wiley, a community organizer with the local chapter of the Sierra
Club. “If there had been cypress trees in front of the levees, there would have been an additional buffer
[during Katrina].” According to the Army Corps, all of the levees that failed during Katrina lacked wetland protection; the levees with a wetland buffer remained intact. Scientists have estimated that storm surge is diminished by one foot for every square-mile of wetland it travels through.
Waste Not, Want Not
With $10 million from the state, SWBNO plans to pipe semi-treated wastewater and biosolids—the brown gooey stuff left after sewage is drained—into Bienvenue. It is not the first time this has been done, but it would be on a larger scale, explains SWBNO Chief of Environmental Affairs Gordon Austin. SWBNO will start with a 20-acre demonstration project in the bayou’s southwest corner, visible from the Industrial Canal. It’s hoped that the nutrient-rich freshwater effluent and soil-like biosolids will be enough to bring back a thriving cypress-tupelo ecosystem.
The swamp has been killed primarily through saltwater intrusion from the various surrounding canals that connect the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. A pulse of freshwater sewage could make the site more suitable for wetland species. In return, those species would help filter and clean the effluent. Eventually,
Austin’s East Bank Treatment Plant will pour nearly 120 million gallons of freshwater a day into Bienvenue.
The addition of biosolids to the bayou would add nearly four feet of soil in which cypress and tupelo seedlings

can take root.
A Community Effort
Universities, environmental groups, local schools, and neighborhood associations are rallying around restoration as Austin and his team work their way through a maze of regulatory approvals and landowner negotiations (the section they eventually want to work in was sold decades ago to nearly 100 prospective landowners who believed one day the swamp would be filled and developed, according to Austin.). Bayou
Bienvenue “is a resource for the community for fishing, boating, hanging out, as well as for storm protection,” says David Eber, the sustainability outreach coordinator at the Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable
Engagement and Development. “This used to be part of our community, and we want it back.”
A group from the University of Colorado has built an observation deck near the bayou, and students from the
University of Wisconsin are working on “floating islands”—rafts of soil on which they are trying to grow wetland grasses. “For what it is worth, Katrina left a blank slate where you can do stuff like this,” says Austin, who hopes to start pumping sewage effluent into the bay before the new year starts.
1.
Read and annotate the article (underline key terms/concepts, write main ideas and/or questions after each paragraph)
2.
What is one reason given in the article for protecting wetland (“bayou”) areas?
3.
How could have wetlands helped New Orleans during hurricane Katrina?
4.
Explain the proposal to restore this wetland area.
5.
How would putting sewage into the wetland help to restore it?
6.
Do you think this is a good idea? Why or why not?

Influence of the oceans on climate
Ocean Currents
High specific heat
Storage of carbon dioxide
The carbon cycle -

An Inconvenient Truth
1. What is the greenhouse effect and what is the role of CO
2
in this process? -
2. What is happening to glaciers around the world and how does this affect people?
3. As CO
2 in the atmosphere increases, the temperature of the planet __________________________.
4. How are ocean temperatures affected by climate change?
4. According to the film, what effects will climate change have on hurricanes/typhoons? WHY are we seeing this effect?
5. what is happening to sea ice in the arctic? Why is it melting so fast?

7.
what causes water to sink at the northern end of the gulf stream?
8.
What could happen to the Gulf Stream if the glacier on Greenland were to melt? Why?
9.
What would/could happen if the glacier on Greenland were to melt and the Gulf Stream slowed down?
10.
. Give two examples of how organisms in the ocean may be affected by climate change.
11.
What will the impacts be as sea level rises around the world?
12.
The United States contribution to climate change is much _____________________than other countries.

13.
What is the difference between the scientific data about climate change and the public perception of climate change?
14.
What are some things that individuals could do to reduce global warming?
15.
What are some things that companies or the government could do to reduce global warming?
Ocean acidification
Coral bleaching
El nino
La nina

Carbon Dioxide Is Putting Shelled Animals at Risk – National Geographic
For tens of millions of years, Earth's oceans have maintained a relatively stable acidity level. It's within this steady environment that the rich and varied web of life in today's seas has arisen and flourished. But research shows that this ancient balance is being undone by a recent and rapid drop in surface pH that could have devastating global consequences.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early
1800s, fossil fuel-powered machines have driven an unprecedented burst of human industry and advancement. The unfortunate consequence, however, has been the emission of billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases into Earth's atmosphere.
Scientists now know that about half of this anthropogenic, or man-made, CO2 has been absorbed over time by the oceans.
This has benefited us by slowing the climate change these emissions would have instigated if they had remained in the air. But relatively new research is finding that the introduction of massive amounts of CO2 into the seas is altering water chemistry and affecting the life cycles of many marine organisms, particularly those at the lower end of the food chain.
Carbonic Acid
When carbon dioxide (CO
2
) dissolves in this ocean, carbonic acid (HCO
3
) is formed. This leads to higher acidity, mainly near the surface, which has been proven to inhibit shell growth in marine animals. Organisms like corals and mollusks that rely external skeletal structures are easily damaged by more acidic water.
Acidification is also suspected as a cause of reproductive disorders in some fish. Furthermore, the increasing temperature of ocean water due to climate change is also causing corals to become stressed and expel the algae that inhabit them, destroying the ecosystem of the coral reef. This phenomenon is known as coral bleaching.
On the pH scale, which runs from 0 to 14, solutions with low numbers are considered acidic and those with higher numbers are basic. Seven is neutral. Over the past 300 million years, ocean pH has been slightly basic, averaging about 8.2. Today, it is around 8.1, a drop of 0.1 pH units, representing a 25-percent increase in acidity over the past two centuries.
Carbon Storehouse
The oceans currently absorb about a third of human-created CO2 emissions, roughly 22 million tons a day.

Projections based on these numbers show that by the end of this century, continued emissions could reduce ocean pH by another 0.5 units. Shell-forming animals including corals, oysters, shrimp, lobster, many planktonic organisms, and even some fish species could be gravely affected.
Equally worrisome is the fact that as the oceans continue to absorb more CO2, their capacity as a carbon storehouse could diminish. That means more of the carbon dioxide we emit will remain in the atmosphere, further aggravating global climate change. All signs indicate that unless humans are able to control and eventually eliminate our fossil fuel emissions, ocean organisms will find themselves under increasing pressure to adapt to their habitat's changing chemistry or perish.
1.
Read and annotate the article.
2.
How does the carbon dioxide that we emit through the burning of fossil fuels cause the oceans to become more acidic?
3.
What are the impacts of increasing acidity (decreasing pH) on specific organisms in the oceans?
4.
What is coral bleaching?
5.
What will happen to the oceans in the future if we do not reduce our carbon dioxide output?

Review Packet - answer all of the following questions. You may use illustrations to explain your answers
1.
Explain how atmospheric cells and the coriolis effect combine to create trade winds that go in a southwest direction in the northern hemisphere.
2.
What causes air to rise at the equator and sink at 30 degrees of latitude?
3.
Why are there such low winds at doldrums and the horse latitudes?
4.
What direction does the surface of the ocean move relative to the wind direction? Explain this using the Ekman spiral.
5.
What causes gyres to move in a circular pattern, and why do they turn different directions in the
Northern and Southern Hemispheres?

6.
What are thermohaline currents?
7.
Explain the processes that cause downwelling and upwelling and how they differ.
8.
Why are areas of upwelling rich in nutrients?
9.
What is the relationship between water temperature and hurricane strength? Why?
10.
What determines where a hurricane falls on the category 1-5 scale?

11.
Explain how hurricanes form and how they generate high winds (vortex).
12.
Explain three ways that the oceans regulate the climate of the planet.
13.
How does human interference with the carbon cycle impact the greenhouse effect?
14.
How could climate change affect ocean currents?

15.
What causes the el nino effect and what are its effects?
16.
How does human production of CO2 affect corals?