Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change

The book is about climate change and tropical cyclones, with an emphasis on the Indian Ocean. It highlights a probability of major changes in tropical cyclone activity across the various ocean basins. The Indian Ocean including the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal are of particular concern because of the high population density along their coastlines. The book aims to reveal the scientific bases of the extreme events and the complexities inherent in combating their hazardous impact.

The chapters are authored by leading experts, both from research and operational meteorological environments. The book is intended to be a first step towards an ongoing international focus on potential impact of climate change in the Indian Ocean. Topics are related to current status of operational tropical cyclone forecasting and early warning systems, tropical cyclone genesis, assessment of risk and vulnerability from tropical cyclones and disaster preparedness, management and reduction. The volume addresses all aspects of global climate change impact on tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean, including documentation of past high impact events, archival maintenance, reconstruction and quality of best track data sets. Particularly discussed are forecasting, emergency response and impact of Tropical Cyclone Gonu which made landfall in Oman in 2007, Tropical Cyclone Nargis (Myanmar 2008) and Tropical Cyclone SIDR (Bangladesh 2007).

Key themes: climate change, tropical cyclones, cyclogenesis, Indian Ocean, cyclone forecasting, SIDR

Yassine Charabi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Her main research interests are in applied climatology and meteorology. She is the author more than 20 scientific publications including the book Elements de Climatologie Urbaine: cas de la ville de Sfax (2006, Centre de Publication Universitaire, Tunisie).

Salim Al-Hatrushi is Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. His research focuses on coastal processes and geomorphology.

Yassine Charabi and Salim Al-Hatrushi  were in the scientific organizing committee of the First International Conference on Indian Ocean Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change, co-sponsored by The World Meteorological Organization (WMO).