![NASA's remotely piloted Global Hawk aircraft will complete a series of flights in February to support the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) El Niño Rapid Response Field Campaign. The mission, called Sensing Hazards Operational Unmanned Technology or SHOUT, will focus on gathering El Niño storm data out over the Pacific Ocean. [NASA photo / Jim Ross]](https://www.theavtimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/NASA-Global-Hawk.jpg)
Based from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, the Global Hawk will fly four to six 24-hour flights during the month of February. The mission will provide detailed meteorological measurements from a region in the Pacific that is known to be particularly critical for interactions linked to West Coast storms and rainfall.
SHOUT is a multi-year NOAA project, designed to demonstrate the use of autonomous aircraft to fill in data gaps for weather modeling systems in case the loss of a polar-orbiting satellite occurs.
This year SHOUT will support NOAA’s larger El Niño Rapid Response Field Campaign. In addition to the Global Hawk, NOAA will also deploy a Gulfstream IV research plane and NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown that will have researchers stationed on Kiritimati (Christmas) Island in the Republic of Kiribati, approximately 1,340 miles south of Honolulu. Together, scientists will collect atmospheric data from the tropical Pacific where El Niño-driven weather systems are spawned.
El Niño is a recurring climate phenomenon, characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, which increases the odds for warm and dry winters across the Northern United States and cool, wet winters across the South. El Niño is the warm phase of the ocean cycle known as El Niño-Southern Oscillation, or ENSO for short. La Niña is the cool phase. The pattern can shift back and forth every two to seven years, disrupting weather patterns across the globe.
The Global Hawk aircraft offers NASA and NOAA scientists a unique vantage point to observe atmospheric conditions with its ability to fly at 65,000 feet and for periods of up to 30 hours. These long-endurance and high-altitude observations give NOAA scientists the opportunity to see a larger picture of how atmospheric changes in the tropics are directly impacting weather activity in the Western U.S.
“The Global Hawk provides amazing capability in its ability to be airborne for 24-hours or more. With the aircraft’s long-endurance we can sample a large range of the ocean, much like a satellite does but in much greater detail,” said Gary Wick, lead NOAA scientist for the SHOUT mission.
For more information on SHOUT, visit http://uas.noaa.gov/shout/. For more information on NOAA’s El Niño Rapid Response Field Campaign, go to http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/rapid_response/.
–
True Moo says
If you go on Intellicast Interactive Weather Map, click on the small map, click on layers, choose radar/satellite mode then click on play at the bottom then you will see a perfect example of ongoing weather manipulation. Then you can then shake your head when they say that we still do not have enough water, that El’ Nino has fallen short of expectations, again, like it did last year and then they will say they want more of our money for what little water on the surface they say we have.
Tim Scott says
I suggest loosening the straps on your tin foil hat.
Carl says
No Tim Scott, he or she is right. Maybe you need to get a tin foil hat to get a clue.
Tim Scott says
LOL…seriously? You are backing this claim that the drought is the result of “ongoing weather manipulation”?