An unprecedented typhoon is heading towards Tokyo where I live. We hope that research that can weaken the power of typhoons will progress. Is there progress in this area?
Thank you for your reply. Unusual typhoons in recent years are powerful compared to those before 2000. I think it would be difficult to set up a project that was once canceled, but the huge typhoon may reflect abnormal weather not only in Japan but also worldwide. Considering this situation, it seems that the time has come to deal with typhoons that cause devastating damage by distinguishing them from ordinary typhoons.
We have over 50 years of disaster research explaining that the typhoon itself is not a disaster, but it is where and how we live causing vulnerabilities which truly cause disasters--as exposed when a hazard such as a typhoon manifests. Some summary papers, referring to this vast literature:
1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pdisas.2019.100008
2. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-018-0188-3
3. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-015-0038-5
4. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-016-2294-0
5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-015-0046-5
6.
https://www.islandstudies.ca/sites/islandstudies.ca/files/ISJ-6-1-2011-Kelman-et-al_0.pdf
Regarding the potential unusualness of this typhoon, we need to be careful because (i) it depends on the length of the dataset and the parameters being measured and (ii) if the parameters relate to flooding, then we need to consider how human changes to the environment have altered flood flows. Irrespective, this parameterisation is merely about the hazard, not the vulnerability. The vulnerability causes the disaster.
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