Storm Chasing with Mic.com

[Whitney Buxton]

Hello, I am a video producer at mic.com working on a branded video series about what issues are important to millennials in swing states. One of the top ranking issues is climate change. We want to approach this story from a different narrative. We are hoping to partner with storm chasers to explore the increasing frequency and severity of storms. Would anyone be interested in collaborating about this project? We would come to you, interview you about your expertise and then ideally go out and follow a storm. Please let me know if this is something you'd be interested in or if you know someone who might want to participate. Thank you so much!

 

[rdale]

Since the impacts (if those are true) won't be felt for decades, I hope this is a long project timeline

 

[Whitney Buxton]

Since the impacts (if those are true) won't be felt for decades, I hope this is a long project timeline

Totally open to adjusting the narrative as long as it relate to climate change. I turn to you all, the experts, to guide the story.

 

[Royce Sheibal]

Considering that in order to make a decent estimate of the change in severe weather frequency over time, we'll need about another 50 years of tornado data, this could take a while... I think the bigger story here isn't the actual change in climate, but the expansion of suburbia in tornado prone areas and the threat that increasing the area of a city has on being hit by tornadoes, as well as increased property damage and insurance losses. Not to mention the lack of basements in modern homes and sub-standard building practices, as well as the general "no fear" attitude the public has toward tornadoes and hurricanes these days.

 

[GPhillips]

If you haven't already, you should talk to Dr. Harold Brooks of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Normal OK. He has given presentations and written articles on severe weather climatology, and possible future severe weather frequency changes in a warming world.

 

[rdale]

Royce has a good point... That's the only way to attack this. Tornadoes are not a climate change "feature" as far as we know. There's no indication that the future will have stronger or more tornadoes or less or weaker ones.

 

[John Moore]

It is sad when "climate change" is the required hook. There are plenty of interesting stories related to storm chasing. Climate change simply is not one of them.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Considering that in order to make a decent estimate of the change in severe weather frequency over time, we'll need about another 50 years of tornado data, this could take a while... I think the bigger story here isn't the actual change in climate, but the expansion of suburbia in tornado prone areas and the threat that increasing the area of a city has on being hit by tornadoes, as well as increased property damage and insurance losses. Not to mention the lack of basements in modern homes and sub-standard building practices, as well as the general "no fear" attitude the public has toward tornadoes and hurricanes these days.

Furthering this discussion, I recommend the OP and everyone else interested to read this recent BAMS article on the subject: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00150.1