NASA Airborne Platforms and Instrumentation Relevant to

Tropical Cyclones

Dan Cecil NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Daniel.J.Cecil@nasa.gov

Alti

tude

(fee

t)

60000

70000

80000

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 >6000

Range (nm)

ER-2

S-3B

DC-8 Lear 25

Ikhana

Global Hawk

C-20/G-III

B-200/UC12

NASA Earth Science Research Capable Aircraft (2016)

Falcon

WB-57

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

C206

JSC AFRC

LaRC

WFF ARC GRC

P-3

Sherpa C-130

SIERRA/Viking (8)

UH-1 Huey

Twin Otter

Dragon Eye (75)

WB-57: Aging aircraft, but great performance in TCI 2015 ER-2: Overflies almost any weather; satellite simulator DC-8: Upper-level microphysics and remote sensing Global Hawk: ~24-h duration. Moving to Block 10 from the initial prototypes.

Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) 2015 Science Flights (ONR TCI project on WB-57)

Patricia

Marty

Joaquin

Surface Wind Speed Retrievals in Hurricanes Marty, Joaquin, and Patricia

High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP)

NASA Global Hawk: 19 km altitude, 24 hours

HIWRAP Characteristics: • Conically scanning. • Simultaneous Ku/Ka-band &

two beams @30 and 40 deg • Winds using precipitation &

clouds as tracers. • Ocean vector wind scatter-

ometry similar to QuikScat.

MEASUREMENTS: Map the 3-dimensional winds and precipitation within

hurricanes and other severe weather events. Map ocean surface winds in clear to light rain regions

using scatterometry.

HIWRAP Views Hurricane Karl During GRIP

1 km

8 km

5 km

• HIWRAP made 20 crossings of Hurricane Karl on September 17, 2010 during GRIP over 14 hours.

• Doppler line of sight wind measurements are continually profiled during the conical scans.

• Horizontal winds are calculated from Doppler winds from multi look angles as the Global Hawk passes across the storm.

Horizontal winds (m/s) and reflectivity (dBZ) derived from one pass across Hurricane Karl’s

eye/eyewall region

EYE

HIWRAP Measurement Geometry

Eyewall

Grid is at 1.5 km x 1.5 km x 0.150 km intervals

6

Wide swath from NASA MSFC’s HIRAD (left panels) quickly maps the wind structure of the hurricane. Narrow sampling from operational instruments (right panels) requires several passes by the aircraft.

HIWRAP VAD wind assimilated

HIRAD surface wind plus HIWRAP VAD wind assimilated

HIRAD surface wind, dropsonde wind, and HIWRAP VAD wind assimilated

HIRAD Wind Retrievals Hurricane Imaging Radiometer

Assimilation graphics courtesy Jason Sippel

Least realistic

Most realistic

Gonzalo 2014

Karl 2010

ER-2 over Hurricane Emily (2005)

EDOP

AMPR Precipitation Index Based on 10, 19, 37, 85 GHz

GOES IR