A53A-0357
The use of targeting techniques with the Global Hawk to improve storm forecasts over Alaska
Friday, 18 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Tanya Rae Peevey1,2, Hongli Wang2,3, Andrew Kren2,3, Jason M English1,2 and Lidia Cucurull2, (1)University of Colorado at Boulder, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)NOAA Boulder, ESRL Global Systems Division, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Fort Collins, CO, United States
Abstract:
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been shown to be a useful tool for addressing scientific questions, such as how clouds develop, and mitigating the impact of extreme weather events by providing additional observations in areas sensitive to larger error growth. Targeting techniques are used in this study to design the optimal flight path for the NASA Global Hawk during a planned flight campaign off the coast of Alaska in September 2015 under the Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) project. This technique will be described along with a few case studies we investigated in detail in order to understand the overall patterns of storms over Alaska prior to and in preparation for the real flight campaign. If available, the impact of data collected from the Global Hawk from September’s campaign on forecast accuracy will be discussed.
