dr. dawson. >> thank you for the opportunity to speak today. my research efforts are focused primarily on model in the simulation of processes in the coastal ocean. the primary sources of federal funding for this work was the national science foundation, the department of defense, and they department of homeland security. we utilize the competition will resources of the national science foundation grid and the texas access computer center. we have connections with the national oceanographic institution and use data in our research. when the main applications of this research as the predictive stimulation of storm surge is due to hurricanes and tropical storms. by predictive simulation i refer to the development of computer models like to be used in real time as hurricanes approach land and study the impact of historical hurricanes to produce actual measurements that were taken during the storm and study future scenarios for reasons i will discuss below. the computer model that we have developed is called adcirc, which stands for advanced circul

dr. clinton dawson, professor computational services at austin. and you all are extraordinary in what you know. and without getting into it, let's get into you. so dr. hook, why don't we start with you. give your testimony, please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. today we grieve for those who suffered loss because of violent weather in recent weeks and we can best honor their loss and suffering by working together to reduce the risks of further tragedy in coming years so thank you for convening this conversation on this topic and thank you for letting us take part. now, because of its size and location, the united states bears a unique degree of risk from natural hazards. we suffer from as many winter storms from russia and china. we have as many hurricanes as china or japan and our coasts are exposed not just to these storms but also to earthquakes and tsunamis, dust bowls and wildfires have shaped our history. and as we know too well, 70% of the world's tornadoes and some 90% of the truly damaging ones occur on our soil. also, because of our global r

dr. claude dawson at the university of texas at austin. all are extraordinary in what you know and without getting into it, let's get into you. dr. hooke, why do we not start with you? >> thank you, mr. chairman. today we grieve for those who suffered loss because of violent weather in recent weeks. we can best honor their loss and suffering by working together to reduce the risks of further tragedy in coming years. thank you for convening this conversation on this topic and thank you for letting us take part. because of its size and location, the united states bears a degree of risk from natural hazards. we suffer from as many winter storms as russia or china. we have as many hurricanes as china or japan. and our toes are exposed not just the the -- our coasts are exposed not just to storms, but to earthquakes and tsunamis. 70% of the world's tornadoes and 90% of the damaging ones occur on our soil. because of our global reach, disasters a world away call for a u.s. response. if you think of the earthquakes in haiti and chile, the earthqua

dr. dawson. do you think that this is an area we should pursue? can it be done computationally within a degree of accuracy? and how would you pursue trying to determine a way to mitigate the enormous damage we're seeing now? which is -- it seems to me that it's so much different from the past. i mean, i grew up in galveston county so i've seen their hurricanes but we never had the kind of katrina, these alabama tornadoes, the damage just seems to be so much more and the ferocity seems to be so much more in the last 10 years than it was in the previous era. so with that, would research help? could it be done with computers? and where would you go from here in your -- >> if we could i would like to begin by suggesting that bob ryan be brought into this conversation because in his graduate work, he actually worked for one of the leading lights and modification -- >> oh, wonderful. >> let him tell that story. >> bernie vonigan had discovered the use of silver iodine and before him ben schafer had the first weather modifications of experiments at schen