Unmanned nasa storm sentinels set for hurricane study

Beginning in late August through early October and continuing forthe next several years during the Atlantic hurricane season, NASAwill dispatch two unmanned aircraft equipped with specializedinstruments high above tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Oceanbasin. These "severe storm sentinels" will investigatethe processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensitychange. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., willjoin several other NASA centers and numerous federal and universitypartners in the HS3 mission. The autonomously-flown NASA Global Hawk aircraft are well-suitedfor hurricane investigations. They can over-fly hurricanes ataltitudes greater than 18,300 meters (60,000 feet), and fly up to28 hours at a time -- something piloted aircraft would find nearlyimpossible to do.

Global Hawks were used in the agency's 2010Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP)

hurricanemission and the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) environmental sciencemission. The Global Hawks will deploy from NASA's Wallops FlightFacility in Virginia and are based at NASA's Dryden Flight ResearchCenter on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. "Hurricane intensity can be very hard to predict because of aninsufficient understanding of how clouds and wind patterns within astorm interact with the storm's environment," said ScottBraun, HS3 mission principal investigator and researchmeteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt,Md. "HS3 seeks to improve our understanding of these processesby taking advantage of the surveillance capabilities of the GlobalHawk along with measurements from a suite of advanced instruments.

"One aircraft will sample the environment of storms while theother will measure eyewall and rainband winds andprecipitation," Braun continued. HS3 will examine thelarge-scale environment that tropical storms form in and movethrough and how that environment affects the inner workings of thestorms. HS3 will address the controversial role of the hot, dry and dustySaharan Air Layer in tropical storm formation and intensification.Past studies have suggested the layer can both favor and suppressintensification. In addition, HS3 will examine the extent to whichdeep convection in the inner-core region of storms is a key driverof intensity change or just a response to storms finding favorablesources of energy. JPL's High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated CircuitSounding Radiometer (HAMSR) microwave sounder instrument will beone of a set of instruments aboard the Global Hawk that will focuson the inner region of the storms.

Most of these instrumentsrepresent advanced technology developed by NASA that in some casesare precursors to sensors planned for future NASA satellitemissions. HAMSR, an advanced water vapor sensor, analyzes the heat radiationemitted by oxygen and water molecules in the atmosphere todetermine their density and temperature. The instrument operates atmicrowave frequencies that can penetrate clouds, enabling it todetermine temperature, humidity and cloud structure under allweather conditions. This capability is critical for studyingatmospheric processes associated with bad weather, like theconditions present during hurricanes.

www.nasa.gov/HS3 and science.nasa.gov/missions/hs3/ . For more on HAMSR: microwavescience.jpl.nasa.gov/instruments/hamsr/ . For more on NASA's hurricane research program: www.nasa.gov/hurricane . For more on NASA's Airborne Science Program: airbornescience.nasa.gov . For more on NASA's Global Hawks: airbornescience.nasa.gov/aircraft/Global_Hawk .

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