Correlation - Hurricane analysis, part 3/3

This is the third part to a three part set of notebooks that process and analyze historic hurricane tracks. In the previous notebooks we saw:

Part 1

Downloading historic hurricane datasets using Python
Cleaning and merging hurricane observations using DASK
Aggregating point observations into hurricane tracks using ArcGIS GeoAnalytics server

Part 2

Visualize the locations of hurricane tracks
Different basins and the number of hurricanes per basin
Number of hurricanes over time
Seasonality in occurrence of hurricanes
Places where hurricanes make landfall and the people are affected

In this notebook you will analyze the aggregated tracks to answer important questions about hurricane severity and how they correlate over time.

Import the libraries necessary for this notebook.

# import ArcGIS Libraries
from arcgis.gis import GIS
from arcgis.geometry import filters
from arcgis.geocoding import geocode
from arcgis.features.manage_data import overlay_layers
from arcgis.geoenrichment import enrich

# import Pandas for data exploration
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from scipy import stats

# import plotting libraries
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
%matplotlib inline

# import display tools
from pprint import pprint
from IPython.display import display

# import system libs
from sys import getsizeof

# Miscellaneous imports
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

gis = GIS('https://pythonapi.playground.esri.com/portal', 'arcgis_python', 'amazing_arcgis_123')

Access aggregated hurricane data

Below, we access the tracks aggregated using GeoAnalytics in the previous notebook.

hurricane_tracks_item = gis.content.search('title:hurricane_tracks_aggregated_ga', item_type="feature layer")[0]
hurricane_fl = hurricane_tracks_item.layers[0]

The GeoAnalytics step calculated summary statistics of all numeric fields. However, only a few of the columns are of interest to us.

pprint([f['name'] for f in hurricane_fl.properties.fields], compact=True, width=80)

['objectid', 'serial_num', 'count', 'count_col_1', 'sum_col_1', 'min_col_1',
 'max_col_1', 'mean_col_1', 'range_col_1', 'sd_col_1', 'var_col_1',
 'count_season', 'sum_season', 'min_season', 'max_season', 'mean_season',
 'range_season', 'sd_season', 'var_season', 'count_num', 'sum_num', 'min_num',
 'max_num', 'mean_num', 'range_num', 'sd_num', 'var_num', 'count_basin',
 'any_basin', 'count_sub_basin', 'any_sub_basin', 'count_name', 'any_name',
 'count_iso_time', 'any_iso_time', 'count_nature', 'any_nature', 'count_center',
 'any_center', 'count_track_type', 'any_track_type', 'count_current_basin',
 'any_current_basin', 'count_latitude_merged', 'sum_latitude_merged',
 'min_latitude_merged', 'max_latitude_merged', 'mean_latitude_merged',
 'range_latitude_merged', 'sd_latitude_merged', 'var_latitude_merged',
 'count_longitude_merged', 'sum_longitude_merged', 'min_longitude_merged',
 'max_longitude_merged', 'mean_longitude_merged', 'range_longitude_merged',
 'sd_longitude_merged', 'var_longitude_merged', 'count_wind_merged',
 'sum_wind_merged', 'min_wind_merged', 'max_wind_merged', 'mean_wind_merged',
 'range_wind_merged', 'sd_wind_merged', 'var_wind_merged',
 'count_pressure_merged', 'sum_pressure_merged', 'min_pressure_merged',
 'max_pressure_merged', 'mean_pressure_merged', 'range_pressure_merged',
 'sd_pressure_merged', 'var_pressure_merged', 'count_grade_merged',
 'sum_grade_merged', 'min_grade_merged', 'max_grade_merged',
 'mean_grade_merged', 'range_grade_merged', 'sd_grade_merged',
 'var_grade_merged', 'count_eye_dia_merged', 'sum_eye_dia_merged',
 'min_eye_dia_merged', 'max_eye_dia_merged', 'mean_eye_dia_merged',
 'range_eye_dia_merged', 'sd_eye_dia_merged', 'var_eye_dia_merged',
 'track_duration', 'end_datetime', 'start_datetime']

Below we select the following fields for the rest of this analysis.

fields_to_query = ['objectid', 'count', 'min_season', 'any_basin', 'any_sub_basin',
                   'any_name', 'mean_latitude_merged', 'mean_longitude_merged',
                   'max_wind_merged', 'range_wind_merged', 'min_pressure_merged',
                   'range_pressure_merged', 'max_eye_dia_merged', 'track_duration',
                   'end_datetime', 'start_datetime']

Query hurricane tracks into a Spatially Enabled `DataFrame`

all_hurricanes_df = hurricane_fl.query(out_fields=','.join(fields_to_query), as_df=True)

CPU times: user 1.12 s, sys: 318 ms, total: 1.43 s
Wall time: 4.5 s

all_hurricanes_df.shape

(12362, 17)

There are 12,362 hurricanes identified by GeoAnalytics aggregate tracks tool. To get an idea about this aggregated dataset, call the head() method.

all_hurricanes_df.head()

	SHAPE	any_basin	any_name	any_sub_basin	count	end_datetime	max_eye_dia_merged	max_wind_merged	mean_latitude_merged	mean_longitude_merged	min_pressure_merged	min_season	objectid	range_pressure_merged	range_wind_merged	start_datetime	track_duration
0	{"paths": [[[59.60000000000002, -17.6000000000...	SI	NOT NAMED	MM	7.0	1854-02-10 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-19.318571	60.639286	NaN	1854.0	1	NaN	NaN	1854-02-08 06:00:00	1.296000e+08
1	{"paths": [[[-23.5, 12.5], [-24.19999999999999...	NA	NOT NAMED	NA	9.0	1859-08-26 12:00:00	NaN	45.0	14.000000	-26.222222	NaN	1859.0	2	NaN	10.0	1859-08-24 12:00:00	1.728000e+08
2	{"paths": [[[-23.19999999999999, 12.1000000000...	NA	UNNAMED	NA	50.0	1853-09-12 18:00:00	NaN	130.0	26.982000	-51.776000	924.0	1853.0	3	53.0	90.0	1853-08-30 00:00:00	1.058400e+09
3	{"paths": [[[59.80000000000001, -15.5], [59.49...	SI	XXXX856017	MM	13.0	1856-04-05 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-20.185385	59.573077	NaN	1856.0	4	NaN	NaN	1856-04-02 18:00:00	2.592000e+08
4	{"paths": [[[99.60000000000002, -11.5], [98.30...	SI	NOT NAMED	WA	13.0	1861-03-15 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-12.940769	94.183846	NaN	1861.0	5	NaN	NaN	1861-03-12 18:00:00	2.592000e+08

To better analyze this data set, the date columns need to be changed to a format that Pandas understands better. This is accomplished by calling to_datetime() method and passing the appropriate time columns.

all_hurricanes_df['start_datetime'] = pd.to_datetime(all_hurricanes_df['start_datetime'])
all_hurricanes_df['end_datetime'] = pd.to_datetime(all_hurricanes_df['end_datetime'])
all_hurricanes_df.index = all_hurricanes_df['start_datetime']
all_hurricanes_df.head()

	SHAPE	any_basin	any_name	any_sub_basin	count	end_datetime	max_eye_dia_merged	max_wind_merged	mean_latitude_merged	mean_longitude_merged	min_pressure_merged	min_season	objectid	range_pressure_merged	range_wind_merged	start_datetime	track_duration
start_datetime
1854-02-08 06:00:00	{"paths": [[[59.60000000000002, -17.6000000000...	SI	NOT NAMED	MM	7.0	1854-02-10 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-19.318571	60.639286	NaN	1854.0	1	NaN	NaN	1854-02-08 06:00:00	1.296000e+08
1859-08-24 12:00:00	{"paths": [[[-23.5, 12.5], [-24.19999999999999...	NA	NOT NAMED	NA	9.0	1859-08-26 12:00:00	NaN	45.0	14.000000	-26.222222	NaN	1859.0	2	NaN	10.0	1859-08-24 12:00:00	1.728000e+08
1853-08-30 00:00:00	{"paths": [[[-23.19999999999999, 12.1000000000...	NA	UNNAMED	NA	50.0	1853-09-12 18:00:00	NaN	130.0	26.982000	-51.776000	924.0	1853.0	3	53.0	90.0	1853-08-30 00:00:00	1.058400e+09
1856-04-02 18:00:00	{"paths": [[[59.80000000000001, -15.5], [59.49...	SI	XXXX856017	MM	13.0	1856-04-05 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-20.185385	59.573077	NaN	1856.0	4	NaN	NaN	1856-04-02 18:00:00	2.592000e+08
1861-03-12 18:00:00	{"paths": [[[99.60000000000002, -11.5], [98.30...	SI	NOT NAMED	WA	13.0	1861-03-15 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-12.940769	94.183846	NaN	1861.0	5	NaN	NaN	1861-03-12 18:00:00	2.592000e+08

The track duration and length columns need to be projected to units (days, hours, miles) that are meaningful for analysis.

all_hurricanes_df['track_duration_hrs'] = all_hurricanes_df['track_duration'] / 3600000
all_hurricanes_df['track_duration_days'] = all_hurricanes_df['track_duration'] / (3600000*24)

Query landfall tracks layer into a Spatially Enabled `DataFrame`

We query the landfall tracks layer created in the pervious notebook into a DataFrame.

inland_tracks = gis.content.search('hurricane_landfall_tracks')[0]

fields_to_query = ['min_season', 'any_basin','any_name', 'max_wind_merged', 
                   'min_pressure_merged', 'track_duration','end_datetime', 
                   'start_datetime', 'analysislength']

landfall_tracks_fl = inland_tracks.layers[0]

landfall_tracks_df = landfall_tracks_fl.query(out_fields=fields_to_query).df
landfall_tracks_df.head(3)

	analysislength	any_basin	any_name	end_datetime	max_wind_merged	min_pressure_merged	min_season	objectid	start_datetime	track_duration	SHAPE
0	4.376642	NA	NOT NAMED	-3663424800000	95.0	965.0	1853.0	1	-3664699200000	1.317600e+09	{'paths': [[[-74.47272727299998, 24], [-74.463...
1	117.097286	NA	UNNAMED	-3645172800000	70.0	NaN	1854.0	2	-3645475200000	2.160000e+08	{'paths': [[[-99.13749999999999, 26.5699999999...
2	256.909588	NA	UNNAMED	-3645172800000	70.0	NaN	1854.0	3	-3645475200000	2.160000e+08	{'paths': [[[-102.21739130399999, 27.686956522...

Manage missing sensor data

Before we can analyze if hurricanes intensify over time, we need to identify and account for missing values in our data. Sensor measurements such as wind speed, atmospheric pressure, eye diameter, generally suffer from missing values and outliers. The reconstruct tracks tool has identified 12,362 individual hurricanes that occurred during the past 169 years.

all_hurricanes_df.shape

(12362, 19)

Visualize missing records

An easy way to visualize missing records is to hack the heatmap of seaborn library to display missing records. The snippet below shows missing records in yellow color.

missing_data_viz = all_hurricanes_df.replace(0,np.NaN)
missing_data_viz = missing_data_viz.replace(-9999.0,np.NaN)
missing_data_viz['min_pressure_merged'] = missing_data_viz['min_pressure_merged'].replace(100.0,np.NaN)

plt.figure(figsize=(10,10))
missing_data_ax = sns.heatmap(missing_data_viz[['max_wind_merged', 'min_pressure_merged',
                                                'max_eye_dia_merged', 'track_duration']].isnull(),
                              cbar=False, cmap='viridis')
missing_data_ax.set_ylabel('Years')
missing_data_ax.set_title('Missing values (yellow) visualized as a heatmap')

Text(0.5,1,'Missing values (yellow) visualized as a heatmap')

All three observation columns - wind speed, atmospheric pressure and eye diameter, suffer from missing values. In general as technology improved over time, we were able to collect better data with fewer missing observations. In the sections below, we attempt to fill these values using different techniques. We will compare how they fare and pick one of them for rest of the analysis.

Missing value imputation

Technique 1: Drop missing values: An easy way to deal with missing values is to drop those record from analysis. If we were to do that, we lose over a third of the hurricanes.

hurricanes_nona = missing_data_viz.dropna(subset=['max_wind_merged','min_pressure_merged'])
hurricanes_nona.shape

(5857, 19)

Technique 2: Fill using median value: A common technique is to fill using median value (or a different measure of centrality). This technique computes the median of the entire column and applies that to all the missing values.

fill_values = {'max_wind_merged': missing_data_viz['max_wind_merged'].median(),
                'min_pressure_merged': missing_data_viz['min_pressure_merged'].median(),
              'track_duration_hrs': missing_data_viz['track_duration_hrs'].median()}
hurricanes_fillna = missing_data_viz.fillna(value=fill_values)

Technique 3: Fill by interpolating between existing values: A sophisticated approach is to interploate a missing value based on two of its closest observations.

hurricanes_ipl = missing_data_viz
hurricanes_ipl['max_wind_merged'] = hurricanes_ipl['max_wind_merged'].interpolate()
hurricanes_ipl['min_pressure_merged'] = hurricanes_ipl['min_pressure_merged'].interpolate()
hurricanes_ipl['track_duration_hrs'] = hurricanes_ipl['track_duration_hrs'].interpolate()

Visualize all 3 techniques

To compare how each of these techniques fared, we will plot the histogram of wind speed column after managing for missing values.

fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,3, sharex=True, figsize=(15,5))
fig.suptitle('Comparing effects of missing value imputations on Wind speed column', 
             fontsize=15)

hurricanes_nona['max_wind_merged'].plot(kind='hist', ax=ax[0], bins=35, title='Drop null values')
hurricanes_fillna['max_wind_merged'].plot(kind='hist', ax=ax[1], bins=35, title='Impute with median')
hurricanes_ipl['max_wind_merged'].plot(kind='hist', ax=ax[2], bins=35, title='Impute via interpolation')
for a in ax:
    a.set_xlabel('Wind Speed')

Next, we will plot the histogram of atmospheric pressure column after managing for missing values.

fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,3, sharex=True, figsize=(15,5))
fig.suptitle('Comparing effects of missing value imputations on Pressure column', 
             fontsize=15)

hurricanes_nona['min_pressure_merged'].plot(kind='hist', ax=ax[0], title='Drop null values')
hurricanes_fillna['min_pressure_merged'].plot(kind='hist', ax=ax[1], title='Impute with median')
hurricanes_ipl['min_pressure_merged'].plot(kind='hist', ax=ax[2], title='Impute via interpolation')
for a in ax:
    a.set_xlabel('Atmospheric Pressure')

Fill using interpolation preserves shape of the original distribution. So it will be used for further anlaysis.

Does intensity of hurricanes increase over time?

This last part of this study analyzes if there a temporal trend in the intensity of hurricanes. A number of studies have concluded that anthropogenic influences in the form of global climate change make hurricanes worse and dangerous. We analyze if such patterns can be noticed from an empirical standpoint.

Does the number of hurricanes increase over time?

ax = all_hurricanes_df['min_season'].hist(bins=50)
ax.set_title('Number of hurricanes per season')

Text(0.5,1,'Number of hurricanes per season')

From the previous notebook, we noticed the number of hurricanes recorded has been steadily increasing, partly due to advancements in technology. We notice a reduction in number of hurricanes after 1970s. Let us split this up by basin and observe if the trend is similar.

fgrid = sns.FacetGrid(data=all_hurricanes_df, col='any_basin', col_wrap=3,
                     sharex=False, sharey=False)
fgrid.map(plt.hist, 'min_season', bins=50)
fgrid.set_axis_labels(x_var='Seasons', y_var='Frequency of hurricanes')

<seaborn.axisgrid.FacetGrid at 0x1a35c9f908>

Plotting the frequency of hurricanes by basin shows a similar trend with the number of hurricanes reducing globally after 1970s. This is consistent with certain studies (1). However, this is only one part of the story. Below, we continue to analyze if the nature of hurricanes itself is changing, while the total number may reduce.

Does hurricane wind speed increase over time?

To understand if wind speed increases over time, we create a scatter plot of min_season against the max_wind_merged column. The seaborn plotting library can enhance this plot with a correlation coefficient and its level of signifance (p value).

jgrid = sns.jointplot(x='min_season', y='max_wind_merged', data=hurricanes_ipl,
             kind='reg', joint_kws={'line_kws':{'color':'green'}}, height=7, space=0.5)
j = jgrid.annotate(stats.pearsonr)
j = jgrid.ax_joint.set_title('Does hurricane wind speed increase over time?')

From the plot above, we notice a small positive correlation. Wind speeds are observed to increase with time. The small p-value suggests this correlation (albeit small) is statistically significant. The plot above considers hurricanes across all the basins and regresses that against time. To get a finer picture, we need to split the data by basins and observe the correlation.

# since there are not many hurricanes observed over South Atlantic basin (SA), 
# we drop it from analysis
hurricanes_major_basins_df = hurricanes_ipl[hurricanes_ipl['any_basin'].isin(
                                            ['WP','SI','NA','EP','NI','SP'])]

Define a function that can compute pearson-r correlation coefficient for any two columns across all basins.

def correlate_by_basin(column_a, column_b, df=hurricanes_major_basins_df, 
                       category_column = 'any_basin'):
    # clean data by dropping any NaN values
    df_nona = df.dropna(subset=[column_a, column_b])
    
    # loop through the basins
    basins = list(df[category_column].unique())
    return_dict = {}
    for basin in basins:
        subset_df = df_nona[df_nona[category_column] == basin]
        r, p = stats.pearsonr(list(subset_df[column_a]), list(subset_df[column_b]))
        
        return_dict[basin] = [round(r,4), round(p,4)]
    
    # return correlation coefficient and p-value for each basin as a DataFrame
    return_df = pd.DataFrame(return_dict).T
    return_df.columns=['pearson-r','p-value']
    return return_df

Analyzing hurricane wind speed over time by basin

Below we plot a grid of scatter plots with linear regression plots overlaid over them. The seaborn library's lmplot() function makes it trivial to accomplish this in a single command.

fgrid = sns.lmplot('min_season', 'max_wind_merged', col='any_basin', 
                   data=hurricanes_major_basins_df, col_wrap=3,
                   sharex=False, sharey=False, line_kws={'color':'green'})

From the scatter plots above, we notice the wind speeds in most basins show a slight positive trend, with North Atlantic being an exception. To explore this further, we compute the correlation coefficient and its p-value below.

wind_vs_season = correlate_by_basin('min_season','max_wind_merged')
print('Correlation coefficients for min_season vs max_wind_merged')
wind_vs_season

Correlation coefficients for min_season vs max_wind_merged

	pearson-r	p-value
SI	0.0686	0.0003
NA	-0.1073	0.0000
NI	0.0528	0.0357
WP	0.0891	0.0000
SP	0.3415	0.0000
EP	0.1177	0.0001

The table above displays the correlation coefficient of hurricane wind speed over time. Hurricanes over the Southern Pacific basin exhibit a positive trend of increasing wind speeds. The r value over the North Atlantic shows a weak negative trend. Since all the p-values are less than 0.05, these correlations are statistically significant.

Analyzing hurricane category over time by basin

Hurricanes are classified on a Saffir-Simpson scale of 1-5 based on their wind speed. Let us compute this column on the dataset and observe if there are temporal aspects to it.

def categorize_hurricanes(row, wind_speed_column='max_wind_merged'):
    wind_speed = row[wind_speed_column] * 1.152  # knots to mph
    if 74 <= wind_speed <= 95:
        return '1'
    elif 96 <= wind_speed <= 110:
        return '2'
    elif 111 <= wind_speed <= 129:
        return '3'
    elif 130 <= wind_speed <= 156:
        return '4'
    elif 157 <= wind_speed <= 500:
        return '5'

hurricanes_major_basins_df['category_str'] = hurricanes_major_basins_df.apply(categorize_hurricanes, 
                                                                              axis=1)
hurricanes_major_basins_df['category'] = pd.to_numeric(arg=hurricanes_major_basins_df['category_str'],
                                                      errors='coerce', downcast='integer')

hurricanes_major_basins_df.head(2)

	SHAPE	any_basin	any_name	any_sub_basin	count	end_datetime	max_eye_dia_merged	max_wind_merged	mean_latitude_merged	mean_longitude_merged	...	min_season	objectid	range_pressure_merged	range_wind_merged	start_datetime	track_duration	track_duration_hrs	track_duration_days	category	category_str
start_datetime
1854-02-08 06:00:00	{'paths': [[[59.60000000000002, -17.6000000000...	SI	NOT NAMED	MM	7.0	1854-02-10 18:00:00	NaN	NaN	-19.318571	60.639286	...	1854.0	1	NaN	NaN	1854-02-08 06:00:00	129600000.0	36.0	1.5	NaN	None
1859-08-24 12:00:00	{'paths': [[[-23.5, 12.5], [-24.19999999999999...	NA	NOT NAMED	NA	9.0	1859-08-26 12:00:00	NaN	45.0	14.000000	-26.222222	...	1859.0	2	NaN	10.0	1859-08-24 12:00:00	172800000.0	48.0	2.0	NaN	None

2 rows × 21 columns

We will create violin and bar plots to visualize the number of hurricane categories over different basins.

fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,2, figsize=(15,6))
vplot = sns.violinplot(x='any_basin', y='category', data=hurricanes_major_basins_df, ax=ax[0])
vplot.set_title('Number of hurricanes per category in each basin')

cplot = sns.countplot(x='any_basin', hue='category_str', data=hurricanes_major_basins_df,
             hue_order=['1','2','3','4','5'], ax=ax[1])
cplot.set_title('Number of hurricanes per category in each basin')

Text(0.5,1,'Number of hurricanes per category in each basin')

We notice all basins are capable of generating major hurricanes (over 3). The Eastern Pacific basin appears to have a larger than the proportional number of major hurricanes. Below, we will regress the hurricane category against time to observe if there is a positive trend.

kde_regplot = sns.jointplot(x='min_season', y='category', 
                            data=hurricanes_major_basins_df, kind='kde', 
                            stat_func=stats.pearsonr).plot_joint(sns.regplot, 
                                                                 scatter=False)
kde_regplot.ax_joint.set_title('Scatter plot of hurricane categories over seasons')

Text(0.5,1,'Scatter plot of hurricane categories over seasons')

Even at a global level, we notice a strong positive correlation between hurricane category and seasons. Below, we will split this across basins to observe if the trend holds well.

wgrid = sns.lmplot('min_season', 'category', col='any_basin', 
                   data=hurricanes_major_basins_df, col_wrap=3,
                   sharex=False, sharey=False, line_kws={'color':'green'})

category_corr_df = correlate_by_basin('min_season','category', df=hurricanes_major_basins_df)
print('Correlation coefficients for min_season vs hurricane category')
category_corr_df

Correlation coefficients for min_season vs hurricane category

	pearson-r	p-value
SI	0.3314	0.0
NA	0.2161	0.0
NI	0.4612	0.0
WP	0.1849	0.0
SP	0.2908	0.0
EP	0.2919	0.0

Thus, at both global and basin scales, we notice a positive trend in the number of hurricanes of category 4 and higher, while there is a general reduction in the quantity of hurricanes per season. This is along the lines of several studies [1] [2] [3] [4]. Thus while the total number of hurricanes per season may reduce, we notice an increase in the intensity of them.

Does eye pressure decrease over time?

Just like a high wind speed, lower atmospheric pressure increases the intensity of hurricanes. To analyze this, we produce a scatter grid of min_pressure_merged column and regress it against min_season column. We split this by basins.

pgrid = sns.lmplot('min_season', 'min_pressure_merged', col='any_basin', 
                   data=hurricanes_major_basins_df, col_wrap=3,
                   sharex=False, sharey=False, line_kws={'color':'green'})

pressure_corr_df = correlate_by_basin('min_season','min_pressure_merged')
print('Correlation coefficients for min_season vs min_pressure_merged')
pressure_corr_df

Correlation coefficients for min_season vs min_pressure_merged

	pearson-r	p-value
SI	-0.0160	0.4027
NA	0.1911	0.0000
NI	0.2551	0.0000
WP	-0.0230	0.1606
SP	-0.2456	0.0000
EP	-0.0270	0.3612

Lower the atmospheric pressure, more intense is the hurricane. Hence we are looking for strong negative correlation between the pressure and season columns. From the charts and table above, we notice South Pacific basin once again tops the list with a mild negative correlation over time. The p-values of Western Pacific and Eastern Pacific is larger than 0.05, so we disregard their correlation coefficients. Over North American and Indian basins, we notice a weak positive correlation.

Do hurricanes linger longer over time?

While wind speed and atmospheric pressure measure two types of intensities, a neverending hurricane can also hurt the communities affected as it inundates the coast with rainfall and storm surge for longer periods of time. In this section we correlate the track duration in days against seasons.

jgrid = sns.jointplot(x='min_season', y='track_duration_days', data=hurricanes_ipl,
             kind='hex', height=7, space=0.5)
j = jgrid.annotate(stats.pearsonr)

sns.regplot(x='min_season', y='track_duration_days', data=hurricanes_ipl, 
            ax=jgrid.ax_joint, color='green',scatter=False)

j = jgrid.ax_joint.set_title('Does hurricane duration increase over time?')

At a global scale, we notice an increase in the duration of hurricanes. Below we split this up by basins to get a finer look.

lgrid = sns.lmplot('min_season', 'track_duration_days', col='any_basin', 
                   data=hurricanes_major_basins_df, col_wrap=3,
                   sharex=False, sharey=False, line_kws={'color':'green'})

linger_time_corr_df = correlate_by_basin('min_season','track_duration_days')
print('Correlation coefficients for min_season vs track_duration_days')
linger_time_corr_df

Correlation coefficients for min_season vs track_duration_days

	pearson-r	p-value
SI	0.3577	0.0000
NA	-0.0295	0.1738
NI	0.0736	0.0034
WP	0.3627	0.0000
SP	0.2716	0.0000
EP	0.2560	0.0000

At most basins, we notice a positive trend in hurricane track duration. An exception to this is the North Atlantic basin where the p-value is not significant enough to let us draw any conclusion.

The trend we notice here could be partly due to technological advancements that allow us to identify and track hurricanes at a very early stage. Hence, to complement this, we will analyze if hurricanes travel longer than usual once they make a landfall.

Do hurricanes travel longer inland over time?

Along the lines of track duration, it is relevant for us to investigate whether hurricanes travel longer inland over time. Thus, we correlate track length column of hurricanes that made landfall against seasons.

jgrid = sns.jointplot(x='min_season', y='analysislength', data=landfall_tracks_df,
                      kind='reg', joint_kws={'line_kws':{'color':'green'}}, 
                      height=7, space=0.5, ylim=[0,2000])
j = jgrid.annotate(stats.pearsonr)
j = jgrid.ax_joint.set_title('Do hurricanes travel longer inland over time?')

lgrid = sns.lmplot('min_season', 'analysislength', col='any_basin', 
                   data=landfall_tracks_df, col_wrap=3,
                   sharex=False, sharey=False, line_kws={'color':'green'})

linger_distance_corr_df = correlate_by_basin('min_season','analysislength', df=landfall_tracks_df)
print('Correlation coefficients for min_season vs inland track length')
linger_distance_corr_df

Correlation coefficients for min_season vs inland track length

	pearson-r	p-value
NA	0.0035	0.8611
NI	-0.2320	0.0000
SI	-0.0013	0.9684
WP	0.0555	0.0004
SP	-0.1722	0.0000
EP	-0.0296	0.6344
SA	1.0000	0.0000

When we correlated inland track length over time, we were able to unravel an interesting observation. At basins where the correlation is statistically significant, it is negative (North Indian, Western Pacific, South Pacific). Thus while the duration of hurricanes continues to increase (due to reasons discussed previously), we notice hurricanes travel shorter distances inland. This could be problematic of communities affected as the hurricane could remain stagnant and produce stronger than usual storm surges and precipitation.

Correlate observations over time

Let us collect all trend analysis we performed so far into a single DataFrame.

# clean data by dropping any NaN values
subset_cols = ['min_season', 'max_wind_merged',
                'min_pressure_merged', 'track_duration_days', 'category']

df_nona = hurricanes_major_basins_df.dropna(subset=subset_cols)

# loop through the basins
basins = list(df_nona['any_basin'].unique())
return_dict = {}
for basin in basins:
    subset_df =df_nona[df_nona['any_basin'] == basin]
    row_vector = []
    for col in subset_cols[1:]:
        r, p = stats.pearsonr(list(subset_df['min_season']), list(subset_df[col]))
        if p < 0.05:
            row_vector.append(round(r,4))
        else:
            row_vector.append(pd.np.NaN)

    return_dict[basin] = row_vector

# return as a DataFrame
return_df = pd.DataFrame.from_dict(return_dict, orient='index', columns=subset_cols[1:])
return_df

	max_wind_merged	min_pressure_merged	track_duration_days	category
NA	0.2171	-0.0904	0.1633	0.2161
SI	0.3156	-0.3608	0.5433	0.3314
NI	0.4456	-0.2234	0.3414	0.4612
WP	0.1755	-0.3666	0.5860	0.1849
SP	0.3028	-0.3508	0.3819	0.2908
EP	0.2820	-0.3510	0.3077	0.2919

We can visualize this correlation table as a heat map to appreciate how the hurricane severity indicators correlate over seasons for each basin.

hm_plot = sns.heatmap(return_df, annot=True, linecolor='black', cmap='RdBu_r')
hm_plot.set_title('Heatmap of correlation coefficients of hurricane severity indicators')

Text(0.5,1,'Heatmap of correlation coefficients of hurricane severity indicators')

Conclusion

In this notebook used the aggregated hurricane tracks produced in part 1 and the landfall tracks layer produced in part 2. We checked for missing sensor observations and imputed those records via interpolation. We then comprehensively analyzed how hurricane severity indicators such as wind speed, atmospheric pressure, track duration, track length inland and category correlate over time (seasons). We noticed the total number of hurricanes have decreased since the 1970s globally and across all basins. While the number of hurricanes is less, we noticed their wind speed, track duration, and category correlate positively, while the atmospheric pressure correlates negatively, against seasons. This aligns with findings from major studies. Thus, we notice a reduction in the number of category 1 and 2, and an increase in the number of category 4 and 5 hurricanes. We noticed the North Indian basin to be highly correlated in this regard.

In this study, through these 3 part notebooks, we saw how to download hurricane data for the past 169 years from NOAA NEIC site over FTP, and how to interact with it initially using Pandas. Since this data is larger than memory for average computers, we learned how to aggregate the columns using the DASK distributed, delayed processing library. We input the result of DASK to the ArcGIS GeoAnalytics server to aggregate these point observations into hurricane tracks. The "reconstruct tracks" tool which performed this aggregation identified 12,362 individual hurricanes across the globe.

In the second notebook, we performed comprehensive visualization and exploratory analysis to understand the geography of hurricanes and the various basins they are categorized into. We observed a strong sinusoidal nature where hurricanes in the northern and southern hemisphere are offset by 6 months. We noticed certain names (Irma, Florence) are more popular than the rest. We overlaid the tracks over land boundary dataset to compute tracks traveled inland and identify places where landfall occur. Through density analysis of the landfall locations, we were able to identify the places that were most affected from a repeat landfall basis. By geo-enriching these places, we learned that China, Hongkong and India are home to the population that is most affected.

Many studies and articles [5] [6] [7] [8] shine light on anthropogenic influences on global Sea Surface Temperature (SST). Higher sea surface temperatures are observed to produce more intense storms; they are attributed to polar ice cap melting and rising sea levels. These combined with increased hurricane intensity can lead to severe storm surges causing increased flooding and damage of the coastal communities. Based on our density and geoenrichment analysis, we noticed these are places along the coast that are densely populated.

This study showcases how a comprehensive spatial data science project can be performed using ArcGIS and open source Python libraries on the ArcGIS Notebook server. The notebook medium makes it convenient to document code, narrative, and graphics in one place. This helps in making research reproducible and approachable. Thus, in this study, we were able to empirically validate the conclusions derived by other studies. In the future, when more hurricane datasets become available, this study can be repeated just by re-running these notebooks.