Word: effective
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Harris says the committee members "had more effect in actually shaping the reform efforts" than the results of the report...
Moreover, that 180-m.p.h. speed limit pertains only to present conditions. There's now a wild card in the climatic deck, observes M.I.T. atmospheric scientist Kerry Emanuel: global warming. Over coming decades, atmospheric pollution and the greenhouse effect are expected to heat not just the air but also the surface of the oceans, and it is the thermal energy of that water that fuels typhoons and hurricanes. As a rule of thumb, according to Emanuel, wind speeds increase 5 m.p.h. for every additional degree Fahrenheit of water temperature. By that formula, sustained winds in future hurricanes could conceivably...
...strong will those storms be? That's harder to estimate, in part because a very big storm is in some ways its own worst enemy. "A hurricane has a noticeable cooling effect on the ocean," explains atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Indeed, at a certain stage of its life cycle, a storm of a given size will stir up enough cold water to put a halt to its growth. At that point, scientists say, it has come into equilibrium. Maintaining that balance is especially hard, because if a hurricane stirs up too much...
...dynamic effect is most obvious in Hata's ties to his long-dead comfort woman and his troublesome daughter. Both are objects of his care and devotion. Both cause him plenty of discomfort. How Hata handles his past and the constant tension between social acceptance and his chronic sense of not belonging finally have little to do with his origins. Chang-rae Lee, whose first novel, 1995's Native Speaker, announced the arrival of a new talent, makes sure of Hata's humanity by giving him an inner life independent of ethnicity and suburban status. But the contrast between Hata...
...cosmopolitan virus does raise questions about the globalization of epidemics, and some analysts believe climate change may be having an effect on the spread of such diseases. "You could never with any certainty tie a disease of this type to global warming," says Gorman. "But there?s an argument being made that climate change may change patterns of disease ?- some plant and animal forms are certainly occurring further north than we?ve ever seen them before." Not much comfort to beleaguered New Yorkers suffering almost nightly pesticide bombardment from the mayor?s helicopters. And if climate change is a factor...