NASA mission sending unmanned aircraft over hurricanes this year

[ScienceRocks]

NASA mission sending unmanned aircraft over hurricanes this year

Several NASA centers are joining federal and university partners in the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.

NASA's unmanned sentinels are autonomously flown. The NASA Global Hawk is well-suited for hurricane investigations because it can over-fly hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet with flight durations of up to 28 hours - something piloted aircraft would find nearly impossible to do. Global Hawks were used in the agency's 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) hurricane mission and the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) environmental science mission.

"Hurricane intensity can be very hard to predict because of an insufficient understanding of how clouds and wind patterns within a storm interact with the storm's environment. HS3 seeks to improve our understanding of these processes by taking advantage of the surveillance capabilities of the Global Hawk along with measurements from a suite of advanced instruments," said Scott Braun, HS3 mission principal investigator and research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
NASA mission sending unmanned aircraft over hurricanes this year

Very cool!

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says is `cause dey's on a rampage...

Why do female hurricanes kill more people than male ones?
Is it that people are less threatened by storms with feminine names and, therefore, take fewer precautions – or is the answer more complicated?

What's in a name? New research suggests that hurricanes with female names may be more deadly than those with male ones. A study by the University of Illinois has revealed that three times as many victims will die if the hurricane is named, say, Donna versus one that is named Dan. Apparently people subconsciously assume storms with female names are less threatening and so take fewer precautions, which results in a higher death toll.

It is an interesting theory. It has been demonstrated that gender stereotyping affects our judgements often, even from very young ages, and even in people who consciously deny stereotypical thinking. This means that people stereotype without knowing it. If gender stereotypes are so ingrained in us, is it so far-fetched to say we are likely to adhere to them at the risk of our own lives?

A house destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Well, yes. There is a gulf of difference between staring at a list of hurricanes and guessing which appear more dangerous, and staying relaxed because the rotating 600-mile column of stormy death rapidly approaching your feeble home has a girl's name. Gender stereotypes are a genuine and persistent property of human behaviour, but so is self-preservation, and the latter tends to overrule everything else when someone is in real, tangible danger.

So if it is not the result of inherent gender stereotyping, why does the data suggest that hurricanes with female names are more deadly? It could be just a coincidence. Or, it could be that hurricanes were only given names in the 1950s, but that male names were not used until 1979. For nearly 30 years all hurricanes were given female names. Add the fact that back then warning systems and the science and engineering behind making buildings weather-resistant were all far less developed than they are today and it should not be any wonder that the death toll is skewed towards hurricanes with female names. Gender stereotyping is definitely a problem that must be dealt with, but it is a human problem. It is alarmingly arrogant to presume that the danger posed by hurricanes is self-inflicted. Mother nature is still in charge on that front.

Why do female hurricanes kill more people than male ones? | World news | The Guardian