Into high waves and turbulence: Engineers deploy smart devices to improve hurricane forecasts
Forecasters’ ability to predict a hurricane’s intensity has lagged behind tracking its path because the forces driving the storm have been difficult and dangerous to measure — until now.
“When we’re talking 150-, 200-mph winds, with 30-foot waves, you don’t send a boat and crew out there to collect data,” said David Richter, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences and faculty affiliate of the Environmental Change Initiative at the University of Notre Dame.
“We can now send drones and other ‘smart’ oceanographic instruments into hurricanes to take measurements in conditions previously considered too extreme to deploy anything.”
Richter is the lead investigator on a $9 million Office of Naval Research Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant that brings together experts in atmospheric science, oceanography and physics-informed modeling to improve hurricane intensity forecasts.
Data from a storm’s center will provide crucial insights into the transfer of energy within the hurricane, particularly at the volatile boundary between atmosphere and ocean.
Collaborators on the project include the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the United States Air Force Reserve and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. Their planes, known as “hurricane hunters,” will carry and release some of the team’s autonomous, data-collecting instruments during routine storm missions.
A tube-like device with sensors, a dropsonde, will record a snapshot of wind speed, air pressure, temperature and humidity on its way from the aircraft to the ocean’s surface. Other air-dropped instruments (profiling floats) will measure water temperature, surface wind and wave height — a key factor in determining surface roughness.
Saildrones, piloted remotely by NOAA researchers, will navigate into the storm’s center to record such metrics as wind speed, air temperature and humidity, atmospheric pressure, currents and waves. Uncrewed aircraft will measure the storm’s low-altitude turbulence.
The collected data will help researchers verify the physical processes dominant in such extreme conditions and develop novel simulation strategies for improving forecasts.
“The goal is always to get better at predicting when and where hurricanes are going to strike and how destructive they’ll be when they land,” Richter said. “The more lead time you have to warn or evacuate people, the better.”
Richter’s research team for this project, titled SASCWATCH: Study on Air-Sea Coupling with Waves, Turbulence, and Clouds at High Winds, includes researchers from Colorado State, Colorado School of Mines, University of Washington, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Texas A&M University, Mississippi State University and University of Miami.
Originally published by research.nd.edu on June 5.
atLatest ND NewsWire
- Graham family makes lead gift for new men’s residence hallTracy and Kerie Graham of South Bend have made a significant leadership gift to the University of Notre Dame for the construction of Graham Family Hall, a men’s residence hall currently under construction on the northeast side of campus.
- Thirty-four students and alumni awarded Fulbright grantsNearly three dozen University of Notre Dame students have been named finalists, and another eight alternates, for the 2024-25 Fulbright U.S. Student Program. The finalists include 26 undergraduate students and eight graduate students.
- Rigorous new study debunks misconceptions about anemia, educationIn low- and middle-income countries, anemia reduction efforts are often touted as a way to improve educational outcomes and reduce poverty. A new study, co-authored by a Notre Dame global health economics expert, evaluates the relationship between anemia and school attendance in India, debunking earlier research that could have misguided policy interventions.
- Alumni Association awards 2024 Lennon Life PrizesThe Notre Dame Alumni Association recognized nine alumni clubs as recipients of the Lennon Life Prize — part of the Chuck and Joan Lennon Gospel of Life Initiative, a set of programs focused on encouraging the University’s dedicated network of clubs to uphold the value of life at all stages.
- 'Hybrid’ disaster response shows how localization saves livesThe earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August 2021 killed thousands of people and left more than half a million seeking help. New research by a University of Notre Dame expert finds that the assessment of this disaster can serve as a model for evaluating future disasters and making life-saving improvements.
- Carter Snead testifies before US Senate Judiciary CommitteeO. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, offered expert testimony on Wednesday (June 12) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary.