Smart Regions talks to the head of the ReNovRisk Cyclones project
Olivier Bousquet is the father of ReNovRisk and Deputy Director of the Atmosphere and Cyclones Laboratory.
He is also the project manager of ReNovRisk Cyclones based on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.
The project is using turtles to help provide information about the ocean, from where cyclone draw their awesome power.
He is passionate about the subject and explained to Smart Regions a little about the terminology of cyclones:
"In the southwestern Indian Ocean basin, cyclones are called tropical cyclones. They are called hurricanes in the North Atlantic Basin and typhoons in the Pacific Basin. In fact, they are all the same weather phenomena, it’s what we call them that changes depending on the geographic region. Here in the Indian Ocean we have about a dozen systems that we call tropical low pressure systems every year, half of which are actually tropical storms. And the other half are cyclones if the wind speed is 130km or more."