The study used more than six decades of death rates from US hurricanes to show that feminine-named hurricanes cause significantly more deaths than do masculine-named hurricanes. A hurricane with a relatively masculine name is was estimated to cause 15.15 deaths on average, whereas a hurricane with a relatively feminine name was estimated to cause 41.84 deaths, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the US. The model used in the study suggested that changing a severe hurricane’s name from Charley to Eloise, for instance, could nearly triple its death toll.
“Feminine-named hurricanes (vs. masculine-named hurricanes) cause significantly more deaths, apparently because they lead to lower perceived risk and consequently less preparedness,” said the study.
Hurricanes in the US used to be given only female names, a practice that meteorologists of a different era considered appropriate due to such characteristics of hurricanes as unpredictability, the study says. However, many think the practice followed the old tradition of naval phenomenon being named after women, just as ships have female names. This practice came to an end in the late 1970s with increasing societal awareness of sexism and protests by women rights activists, and an alternating male-female naming system was adopted.
“The stereotypes that underlie these judgments,” Sharon Shavitt, a professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and one of the study’s authors, had said in a statement, “are subtle and not necessarily hostile toward women — they may involve viewing women as warmer and less aggressive than men.”
Why are cyclones named?
The use of short, distinctive names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older, more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods, according to the National Hurricane Centre of the US. These advantages are especially important in exchanging detailed storm information between hundreds of widely scattered stations, coastal bases, and ships at sea.
Easily remembered names also greatly reduce confusion when two or more tropical storms occur at the same time. In the past, confusion and false rumors have arisen when storm advisories broadcast from radio stations were mistaken for warnings concerning an entirely different storm located hundreds of miles away.
How are cyclones named?
Six Regional Specialised Meteorological Centres (RSMC) and five regional Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres in the world decide names of cyclones. RSMC Delhi decides names of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea from the lists, each with 13 names, sent by 13 countries in the North Indian Ocean basin — India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, UAE and Yemen.
The names should be non-controversial, politically and culturally neutral, non-offensive, easy to pronounce and not more than eight letters long.
How was Biparjoy named?
Biparjoy, which means ‘calamity’, is one of the names in the list sent by Bangladesh. Other names in the Bangladesh list are Arnab, Rajni and Urmi. The cyclone that hit Myanmar and Bangladesh in May this year was called Mocha, which came from the list sent by Yemen. It’s the name of a village famous for producing coffee. The cyclone that comes after Biparjoy will be called Tej, a name from the Indian list. Other names in the Indian list are Gati, Vyom, Neer, Prabhanjan and Jaladhi.