Webinar: What We Learned from the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane Season
In this webinar, Dr. Peter Sousounis, VP and Director of Climate Change Research, and Dr. Karthik Ramanathan, AVP and Principal Engineer, provide meteorological, climatological, and engineering insights into the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season that not only confirm but also enhance AIR’s understanding of this peril.
The webinar includes a deep dive into Hurricane Dorian—the most intense storm on record to strike the Bahamas—and the damage it caused. Dr. Sousounis also addresses the possible climate change impacts to this and future hurricane seasons.
Peter Sousounis, Ph.D.
Vice President and Director of Climate Change Research
psousounis@air-worldwide.com
Dr. Peter Sousounis is Vice President and Director of Climate Change Research at AIR Worldwide. His current responsibilities include ensuring that current and future catastrophe model development at AIR accounts for climate change, identifying products and tools to help clients address their climate change concerns, assisting with global resilience projects, and providing thought leadership in various forms of oral and written communication. He has been responsible for overseeing all global atmospheric model development, including hurricanes, extratropical cyclones, and severe thunderstorms, as well as for building the first numerically based storm surge model and the first ever tsunami model. He has graduate degrees in Meteorology from MIT and Penn State and has authored nearly 100 publications on various topics of weather, climate, climate change, and catastrophe modeling.
Karthik Ramanathan, Ph.D.
AVP and Principal Engineer
kramanathan@air-worldwide.com
Dr. Karthik Ramanathan is an Assistant Vice President and Principal Engineer in AIR's Research and Modeling group, working primarily on the vulnerability of civil engineering systems to atmospheric hazards including wind, inland and coastal flooding, hail, and tornadoes. He heads AIR’s Vulnerability group in modeling the risk from atmospheric perils to the built environment across the globe and has participated in numerous post-disaster damage surveys. He holds a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering, Mechanics, and Materials from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a special focus in earthquake engineering.
