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NASA | Hurricane Hunters
Poziom:
Temat: Nauka i technologia
[Narrator]: Hurricane Katrina.
One of the most devastating natural disasters in US history.
More than 1800 people lost their lives
while countless others lost homes and livelihoods.
Five years later, the waters have receded but
Katrina's legacy remains. Why
did Katrina become a category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico?
And what made it weaken before landfall? It's
questions like this that NASA researchers hope to answer this hurricane season.
The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes
mission, or GRIP, is a field experiment that looks at
how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes.
[Kakar]: This experiment is designed not only
to help the experts better understand which of the tropical disturbances
will develop into tropical storms or hurricanes, but also help them
predict which ones will intesify to monsters and
which ones will fizzle out rapidly.
[Narrator]: During the 2010 hurricane season, NASA deplyed its piloted
DC-8 and WB-57 and unmanned
Global Hawk aircraft in a massive effort to collect as much
data as possible, arming hurricane researchers with the
information needed to predict the growth and intensification of
hurricanes. [Braun]: With the DC-8 and in particular the wind LIDAR
we're going to get continuous wind measurements in the environment of the storm, something that we've never
been able to get before. With the Global Hawk, the
expectation is that because of its 30 hour duration, flight duration,
we're going to be able to be out over storms for up to 20 hours or so, which is
about 2-4 times longer than what we'd be able to do with conventional aircraft.
When you're out there only getting very brief looks for short periods of time
it's very easy to miss those critical events. And so, with GRIP
we think we have a very good chance of being able to see those processes
much more easily than we've been able to do in the past.
[Narrator]: Each aircraft brings its own set of expertise. The DC-8,
stationed in Ft. Lauderdale, carries NASA researchers into
hurricanes, allowing them to study the storm from the inside out.
It is capable of reaching altitudes of 42,000
feet and is helping scientists with sensor development and verification
and studies of the planet's surface and atmosphere.
The Global Hawk- This remotely piloted
aircraft, stationed out of California, is capable of flying at
60,000 feet and is providing information on lightning, wind speed and other
environmental factors in a tropical cyclone.
The WB-57, stationed in Houston, Texas,
is a high altitude, piloted airplane capable of
reaching the dizzying height of 65,000 feet. It's
instruments retrieve data on the upper atmosphere.
This fleet of specially outfitted aircraft will give researchers an
unprecedented look inside the mechanics of storms.
[Braun]: The benefit of studying hurricanes with so many instruments at once is that it
gives us a more complete description of the atmosphere, both within the storm
and in the environment. Within the storm, we want information
not only on the winds within the storm, but also the temperature, humidity,
and precipitation in the eye, the eye wall, and the rain bands.
All that information is critical to understanding how the storms
evolve. [Narrator]: GRIP will also gather data from a much
higher vantage point, outer space. The TRMM, Aqua,
Terra, and Cloudsat satellites provide data to scientists
on Earth, giving them a comprehensive look at storms
from different perspectives. [Halverson]: GRIP is designed
to take the latest technologies that NASA can bring to bare.
Satellites, aircraft that fly in the storm, aircraft that fly over the storm,
systems on the ground, let's put it all out there for 6 weeks and
see what we can learn about the physics of these storms. [Narrator]: The flights
conducted through GRIP this hurricane season will undoubtedly provide
vital information on the lifecycle of hurricanes.
This information will help scientists predict the birth of potential hurricanes
and understand why some tropical cyclones can go from a
category 2 to a category 5 hurricane in a
matter of hours.
