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NASA's Role in the Prediction of Hurricanes

By Ghassem Asrar

SINCE ITS CREATION IN 1958, NASA HAS BEEN studying Earth and its changing environment by observing the atmosphere, oceans, land, ice and snow, as well as their influence on climate and weather. We now realize that the key to gaining a better understanding of the global environment is exploring how Earth's systems of air, land, water and life interact with each other. The first weather and communications satellites launched by NASA fundamentally changed our way of thinking and expanded our perspective concerning the global environment and weather.

Earth's environment is constantly changing, and those changes affect us all. Some of these changes, such as hurricanes, are rapid and violent. While we have made great progress in the study of hurricanes, we have just begun our journey to produce precise predictions—well in advance of the storms—of exactly when and where hurricanes will hit our shorelines. NASA has developed a suite of instruments to provide insight into the science of hurricanes. We will continue to fly ever more advanced spacecraft and instruments to bring us closer to precision forecasts that will save lives and prevent unnecessary economic hardships.

The state of technology for studying hurricanes today shows how far we have come but also points out that we have a long way to go. Hurricane Bonnie provided NASA researchers with the opportunity to make incremental advances in the understanding of hurricanes. Two NASA missions showcased in this issue provided valuable information on the dynamics of Hurricane Bonnie: the third Convection and Moisture Experiment (CAMEX-3), a mission involving the use of aircraft, and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), a space-based satellite.

Concerns about Earth reach beyond the scientific community to the business world. Natural disasters cost the United States tens of billions of dollars each year. The trillion-dollar banking and insurance industries are beginning to see the value of Earth observation in such areas as forecasting hurricanes. Such businesses are built on a stable world climate. Their well-being depends on good information about the future of Earth's environment and its weather. Instead of being held captive to whatever climate changes may occur over time, NASA and its partners are striving to discover climate patterns that will allow us to predict, and perhaps respond to, environmental changes well in advance of their occurrence.

The information on hurricanes provided here is but a small piece of the complex climate patterns that we are only just beginning to understand. NASA's Earth Science Enterprise seeks to combine information about our oceans, wind, land, and atmosphere to provide predictive capabilities that may allow us to forecast climate changes years and decades in advance.

For more information on hurricanes, visit the following web sites:

• Hurricane Bonnie Image Catalog: http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/rsd/images/Bonnie.html
• TRMM Home Page: http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/
• CAMEX-3 Home Page: http://ghrc.msfc.nasa.gov/camex3/

Hurricane Bonnie and the Chimney Cloud.