Earth: Hurricane Hunters Fly Towards Improved Forecasts

As EARTH Magazine reports, three projects may be responsible for a 20 percent error reduction in hurricane track and intensity forecasts. The Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program, NASA’s 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Project Field Experiment, and the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel Project have contributed to these improvements.

The addition of unmanned aircraft, called Global Hawks, allows scientists to better observe hurricane evolution using a variety of sensors. For the 2013 hurricane season, scientists hope to corroborate Global Hawk data with Doppler data obtained in NOAA’s manned “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft.

Learn more about advances in hurricane forecasting at http://bit.ly/13Ae0DJ, as well as the fate of hind wings in prehistoric birds and how Columbian scientists are researching the effects of soil and weather on body decomposition to locate clandestine graves, all in the August issue of EARTH Magazine.

Keep up to date with the latest happenings in Earth, energy and the environment news with EARTH magazine online at www.earthmagazine.org/. Published by the American Geosciences Institute, EARTH is your source for the science behind the headlines.