Journal #2 - Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Research

It's been a little while since I've updated. Here's where I currently stand.

I've finalized the field work proposal, and have a pretty good idea of what I want to do. My current thoughts are based around the idea of creating a new hurricane intensification index involving storm size - who better to ask about a new index than the experts themselves? My plan is to e-mail a couple dozen experts in the field of hurricane intensity, and ask them for their opinions on how they would make changes to hurricane intensity indexes such as ACE or the Saffir-Simpson scale, especially with regards to storm size. While taking their recommendations into account, I will begin my own research into the topic, beginning broadly at first and then quickly getting more specific as I get more responses. There's the possibility of visiting a few libraries and universities, but most information now is available, free of charge, on the internet. Finally, a few nights ago I reflected on why the goal of this research project is important. One of the reasons, besides accuracy, is that perhaps an introduction of storm size into hurricane intensity indexes, such as ACE, will give us a better understanding of the trends in hurricane power over time. Perhaps changing the index will reveal that hurricanes have had a noticeable, significant spike in overall intensity over the past 30 years, or maybe it will further conclude that there has been little change in overall hurricane intensity over the past few decades. The possibilities are exciting.