Dryer Winters Result In Fewer Tornadoes

http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/4/2/024012/erl9_2_024012.pdf?request-id=f4e95a60-45f4-494e-86e2-577efddeca3b

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/07/01/Climate-change-affects-tornado-activity/UPI-29391246480329/

The news article “Climate change affects tornado activity” touches upon the research done by Marshall Shepherd, Dev Niyogi, and Thomas Mote. The evidence in this article is based on the article written by Shepherd, Niyogi, and Mote in the Environmental Research letters called “A seasonal-scale climatological analysis correlating spring tornadic activity with antecedent fall-winter drought in the southeastern United States”. In comparing and contrasting these two articles, the difference between primary literature and secondary literature can be seen.

First of all, the two articles differ in their titles. The news article has a very simple headline while the journal article is more complex and descriptive. The title of the journal article gives the reader more of an understanding of the contents of the article than the new article’s title does.

Another stark difference between the two articles is the length of each article. The news article is approximately half of a page. The journal article, on the other hand, is 7 pages long. This indicates that there is much more information included in the journal article. The news article gives the reader a brief summary of the evidence found in the study, while the journal article has approximately a page of results.

There are, however, instances when the two articles make the same statement, just slightly differently

"A U.S. study suggests that climate change effect of dry autumns and winters may lead to fewer tornadoes developing during the spring season.” ("Climate change affects," 2009)

“Our results suggest that there is a statistically significant reduction in tornado activity during the tornado season following meteorological drought in the preceding fall or winter. (Shepherd, Niyogi, & Mote; 2009)

The two articles even make identical statements, especially when the news article is directly quoting one of the scientists or the journal article itself.

The news article, as a secondary literature resource, provides the reader with a fine summary of the article. However, if the intention of the reader is to learn more about the study that was done, the primary literature (journal article) would be a more appropriate resource to consult.

The journal article contains the motivation for the experiment and the objective of the research being conducted. This information gives the reader a background before discussing the actually experiment that was preformed. The journal article also explains that they will be using tornado data from March to June and the antecedent time period is the previous 6 months. As well, the article mentions the study area of the experiment, in this case, the state of Georgia and what is considered a drought period for the experiment. The news article fails to address these aspects of the experiment.

“We primarily focused on tornado activity in the Mar-Jun time frame because it is the most active period for tornadoes in north Georgia, and it minimizes likely influences from tropical cyclone-spawned tornadoes.” (Shepherd, Niyogi, & Mote; 2009)

The journal article also lists a detailed methodology to the experiment and how they collected their data. As well, they present very comprehensive results to the experiment and several diagrams and graphs to convey these findings. For instance, I found the following important to the results of the experiment:

“On average, antecedent non-drought years had nearly twice as many tornado days in the study area as antecedent drought years. Antecedent non-drought years were also five to six time more likely to have multiple tornado days than in antecedent drought years.” (Shepherd, Niyogi, & Mote; 2009)

On the contrary, the news article makes very few comments on the findings of the research.

The news article makes a very broad claim that fewer tornadoes are the result of dry previous months without providing the evidence needed to back up such a claim. The journal, on the other hand, makes the same claim, but runs through the experiment and gives the evidence to support the claim.

As well, the news article is limited due to the fact that it is likely not written by a scientist who would understand and be able to interpret all of the findings of the study. The news article is solely meant to report the findings so that others who are interested can look further into the subject. This particular journal article also has limitations, as it states:

“There is a paucity of literature documenting how drought conditions feedback to the frequency or intensity of tornadic activity.” (Shepherd, Niyogi, & Mote; 2009)

This demonstrates that this research is one of the first of this kind and it is limited by this fact. It is also limited in the way that the study was only conducted for tornadoes in Georgia so other areas do not apply for this study. However, other studies are currently underway for other areas of the United States (Shepherd, Niyogi, & Mote; 2009).

Overall, it can be seen that the primary literature is far more in-depth than the secondary literature. The news article acts a sufficient study, but if more information is needed, the primary literature should definitely be consulted.


References

(2009, July 01). Climate change affects tornado activity. Retrieved from http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/07/01/Climate-change-affects-tornado-activity/UPI-29391246480329/

Shepherd, M., Niyogi, D., & Mote, T. L. (2009). A seasonal-scale climatological analysis correlating spring tornadic activity with antecedent fall-winter drought in the southeastern United States. Environmental Research Letters, 4(2), Retrieved from http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/4/2/024012/erl9_2_024012.pdf?request-id=136360dc-d462-4b39-b4fc-1a6c34f45fd1 doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/4/2/024012