New airborne Gps navigation technology for climate conditions takes flight

Gps navigation technologies have broadly advanced science and society's capability to pinpoint precise information, from driving directions to monitoring ground motions throughout earthquakes. A brand new technique brought with a investigator at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC North Park stands to enhance weather models and hurricane predicting by discovering precise conditions within the atmosphere via a new Gps navigation system aboard planes.

The very first illustration showing the strategy, detailed within the journal Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), is pushing the project's leaders toward an objective of broadly applying we've got the technology soon on commercial aircraft.

Current measurement systems which use Gps navigation satellite signals like a source to probe the climate depend on Gps navigation devices which are fixed to ground and should not measure within the sea, or they depend on Gps navigation devices which are also on satellites which are costly to produce and just from time to time measure in regions near storms. The brand new system, brought by Scripps Institution of Oceanography geophysicist Jennifer Haase and her co-workers, captures detailed meteorological blood pressure measurements at different elevations at specific regions of interest, for example within the Atlantic Sea in regions where severe weather might develop.

"This area campaign shown the opportunity of creating a completely new operational atmospheric watching system for precise moisture profiling from commercial aircraft," stated Haase, an connect investigator using the Cecil H. and Ida M. Eco-friendly Institute of Physics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) at Scripps. "Getting dense, more information concerning the vertical moisture distribution near to the storms is a vital advancement, if you put these details right into a weather model it'll really have an effect and enhance the forecast."

"They are exciting results, especially because of the complications involved with working from an plane," states Eric DeWeaver, program director within the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, which funded the study. "Satellite-based dimensions are actually regularly employed for weather predicting and also have a large impact, but planes will go beyond satellites for making findings which are specific exactly where you would like them.Inch

The GRL paper particulars a 2010 flight campaign aboard NSF aircraft and subsequent data analysis that shown the very first time that atmospheric information might be taken by an airborne Gps navigation device. The instrumentation, that the researchers labeled "GISMOS" (GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] Instrument System for Multistatic and Occultation Realizing), elevated the amount of atmospheric profiles for staring at the evolution of tropical storms by greater than 50 %.

"We are searching at just how moisture evolves then when we have seen tropical waves moving over the Atlantic, we are able to find out more about which goes becoming a hurricane," stated Haase. "So having the ability to take a look at what goes on during these occasions in the initial phases can give us considerably longer lead here we are at hurricane alerts."

"This really is another situation where the employment of Gps navigation can enhance the forecast and for that reason save lives," stated Richard Anthes, leader emeritus from the College Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which presently runs the satellite based Gps navigation dimensions system known as COSMIC (Constellation Watching System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate).

As the current GISMOS design occupies a refrigerator's price of space, Haase and her co-workers will work to miniaturize we've got the technology to shoe box size. After that, the machine can more possibly fit onto commercial aircraft, with 100s of daily plane tickets along with a potential ton of recent atmospheric data to greatly improve hurricane predicting and weather models.

We've got the technology also could improve interpretation of lengthy-term climate models by evolving scientists' knowledge of factors like the moisture problems that are favorable for hurricane development.

Paytsar Muradyan, who lately received a Ph.D. from Purdue College in atmospheric sciences, began dealing with Haase in 2007 like a graduate student throughout the formative stages of GISMOS's design and development. She eventually travelled using the group within the 2010 campaign and required away an abundance of experience in the demands from the project.

"It had been lots of responsibility and surely rewarding to utilize several world-known researchers within an interdisciplinary project," stated Muradyan.

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First measurement flight: Research aircraft HALO explores trade wind clouds

Which climate effects do clouds have? Under what conditions will they warm or awesome the climate? Today, after greater than 5 years of preparation, the specifically outfitted research aircraft HALO (Thin Air and Lengthy Range Research Aircraft) will take off because of its first measurement flight in atmospheric research. Prof. Bjorn Stevens and Dr. Lutz Hirsch in the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) leave Oberpfaffenhofen in Germany for any ten-hour flight to Barbados.

They'll operate numerous calculating instruments aboard HALO with respect to the German atmospheric research: "Each day we've eagerly looked forward to," states Stevens. "It's the initial pursuit to exploit the novel abilities of HALO to determine vertical profiles of aspects of atmospheric water -- like vapor, liquid and ice, both in cloud and precipitation forms, along with the aerosol contaminants where cloud tiny droplets form -- from the thin air. A brand new era of airborne atmospheric research." The aircraft, outfitted with a lot of advanced technology, is definitely an initiative by German climate and environment research institutions (see below) and it is run by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

The flight belongs to the NARVAL project (Next-generation Aircraft Remote-Realizing for Validation Studies) and can supply the researchers with increased more information around the metabolic rate of tropical clouds (Fig. 1). The transatlantic plane tickets from Oberpfaffenhofen to Barbados will complement the stationary dimensions from the cloud observatory on Barbados. The collected data will lead to some better knowledge of cloud and precipitation processes and will assist you to reduce questions in climate models.

Remote realizing instruments, situated within the "Belly Pod" beneath the aircraft?s shell, will identify vertical profiles of humidity and temperature and also the distribution of tiny droplets and aerosols (Fig. 2). Furthermore, so-known as dropsondes is going to be launched throughout the flight. These radiosondes usually ascend from Earth with the aid of a weather balloon and perform dimensions enroute with the atmosphere. This time around, they'll be came by parachute and can glide back down.

The very first measurement flight is really a joint project from the MPI-M using the Meteorological Institute from the College Hamburg, DLR, Colleges of Perfume, Leipzig and Heidelberg and also the Forschungszentrum J?lich. It will require the researchers on the lengthy-haul flight to Barbados, in which the MPI-M cloud observatory is situated, and back. Ideally, comparison dimensions using the satellite CloudSat is going to be carried out throughout the plane tickets. The satellite measures the Atlantic clouds in trajectories crosswise towards the flight route. Short plane tickets of HALO in parallel using these satellite trajectories have the ability to ensure the satellite?s dimensions (Fig. 3): the aircraft flies in a lower altitude compared to satellite and may therefore identify the clouds a lot more accurate.

As a whole, the environment route Oberpfaffenhofen -- Barbados and back ought to be flown three occasions in December 2013 ("NARVAL South"). Throughout the 2nd flight, a nearby flight from Barbados eastward with the trade wind clouds is planned. The goal would be to identify clouds which are directly at risk of the Barbados cloud observatory and also to do a comparison towards the land-based cloud observatory data.

The 2nd area of the mission is going to be completed underneath the direction from the College Hamburg in The month of january ("NARVAL North"). HALO depends on Iceland to look at the backsides of fronts within the North Atlantic. The quantity of precipitation around the backsides of fronts is really a questionable subject in science because satellite findings and model information provide spun sentences. "Measured values are missing?? because ships don't sail during these typical storm zones" states principal investigator Prof. Felix Ament in the Center for Earth System Research and Sustainability (CEN), College of Hamburg. "A effective HALO mission could provide important details and eliminate a 'blank spot' into the spotlight of science."

The study aircraft HALO is definitely an initiative by German climate and environment research institutions. HALO is funded by: Federal Secretary of state for Education and Research (BMBF), German Research Foundation (DFG), Helmholtz Association, Max Planck Society, Leibniz Association, Free Condition of Bavaria, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Package), GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences, Forschungszentrum J?lich and German Aerospace Center (DLR)

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Solar-powered plane makes 19-hour flight

What's billed as the first intercontinental flight for a solar-powered aircraft landed late Tuesday night in Rabat, Morocco after a 19-hour journey from Madrid, Spain.

"The flight over the Gibraltar straight was a magical moment," pilot and adventurer Bertrand Piccard, who has already circumnavigated the world by balloon, said upon arrival at the Rabat airport. He told reporters that his Solar Impulse craft came to Morocco "out of admiration for Morocco's pioneering solar energy program," according to the Associated Press.

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The single-seat aircraft has 12,000 solar cells spread across a wingspan similar to that of a large commercial jet airliner. Organizers say it weighs, however, about as much as an average family car.

Solar Impulse made the first leg of its journey, from Switzerland to Madrid, in late May but since it can only fly in ideal weather, it had to wait for the right conditions to continue on toward Morocco. It climbed up to 27,000 feet and reached top speeds of more than 75 miles per hour.

Piccard said the plane isn't meant to replace conventional airplanes but rather to show what solar energy can accomplish. "All of the technology on this plane can be used in daily life," he said, reports AP.

His project, begun in 2003, aims for a round-the-world flight with a new, upgraded plane in 2014. Estimated to have cost about $100 million, it has received funding from major corporations, including Deutsche Bank, Bayer and Schindler.

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