Herbert Saffir King Of Winds
28/11/07 - Earlier this week, Herbert Saffir passed away at the age of 90. It’s not a name that leaps out of the page at you; he didn’t appear in a classic film or get caught up in a political scandal involving a party girl and government secrets. What he did do was produce the system which we use to categorise hurricanes.Remember Hurricane Katrina – that category 5 hurricane that slammed into New Orleans a couple of years ago? Well it was category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, a system designed to rate the destructive potential of hurricanes.
The scale is an important tool for weather researchers. When Herbert, a civil engineer, and his colleague at the newly designated US National Hurricane Centre, Bob Simpson, started to analyse hurricanes in the 1960s they realised that there was no simple system for describing the intensity of a particular storm. There were different measurements available, but no-one had thought to combine them into a single scale. So that’s what Saffir and Simpson set about doing.
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Over the last few years there have been mutterings amongst the meteorological fraternity that increasing sea temperature, thanks to global warming, will increase the number and severity of hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones. Indeed, a 2005 paper published in the journal Science claimed that the number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes had increased by 80% over a twenty year period. This research has since been shown to be a little over the top (see this article for an excellent appraisal of the discussion) but the signs are there. Some scientists have talked about having to extend Saffir’s scale, introducing a sixth category.
Throughout the rest of his working life, Saffir campaigned for better building regulations to ensure that people were adequately protected from the worst that the weather could throw at them. Following the category 5 Hurricane Camille in 1969, Saffir and his colleagues made innumerable attempts to convince planners to prepare for the worst. His warnings were not heeded, as the destruction caused by Katrina amply illustrated.
But official intransigence didn’t cow Saffir. Even at the time of his death he was planning to testify in favour of a group of homeowners who were left with nothing following Hurricane Katrina. Maybe the time has come for the gulf coast to finally take note.
We don't have enough unsung heroes on the site - who would you nominate? I could be anyone you think worthy of a bit of a mention, from a professor of everything to some fella who made low fat crisps tasty. In the mean time, here are some other heroes:
- Rachel Maines - The voice of the vibrator
- Dennis Kunkel - Making small beautiful
- Nikola Tesla - All round genius
- Yuri Gagarin - Gagarin but not forgotten
*All information directly from the official description of Saffir-Simpson scale - even the stuff about shrubs.
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