2002 Hurricane Field Program Firsts
- NOAA's Gulfstream IV jet flies four eight hour surveillance
missions around Isidore in under 48 hours. Crews were able to
accomplish this with just 3 and a half hours turnaround time.
Then around Hurricane Lili the G-IV flies five consecutive
missions within 60 hours.
- The first complete mapping of both the upper ocean's
temperature and current fields in a near-hurricane environment
was accomplished during the Hurricane AIR Sea INteraction
(HAIRSIN) experiments conducted this year in collaboration with
the University of Miami. During HAIRSIN the following firsts were
achieved :
- First real-time processing and transmission of Airborne
eXpendable BathyThermograph (AXBT) ocean temperature profile
data from NOAA P-3 to NCEP
- First time the SAME upper ocean area temperature has been
sampled on two consecutive days. Paired AXBT measurments, in
the pre-storm and hurricane environment, were typically only a
few kilometers apart. These observations will allow researchers
to quantitatively estimate the direct change hurricane winds have
on the ocean's mixed layer structure.
- First deployment of an Airborne eXpendable Conductivity
Temperature and Depth probe (AXCTD) in strong winds. This will
allow examination of the response of the ocean mixed layer
to the tropical storm environment.
- Concurrent Airborne eXpendable Current Profiler (AXCP) drop
and directional wave spectra measured from aircraft. This will
help define the relationship of surface waves to wind-driven
flows and ocean swell.
- First Coupled Boundary Layer Air Sea Transfer (CBLAST)
experiments are flown. This Office of Naval Research project
used a new suite of instruments installed on the NOAA P-3s to
measure the air-sea interface and atmospheric boundary layer in a
high-wind environment.
- Data are transmitted from and received by the NOAA P-3s over
a satellite phone link to the Internet.
|
|
