Next-Generation Marine Atmosphere Observing Instrumentation

This project will develop an automated means of deploying multiple dropsondes from manned aircraft into hurricanes. Today, significant airspace is physically inaccessible from surface upper air stations, leaving data sparse regions over the oceans. Automated airborne dropsonde deployment systems will provide reliable “on demand” vertical atmospheric profiling, enabling meteorological measurements at pre-determined geographical coordinates Increasing the spatial granularity of ocean surface and subsurface environmental measurements in data-denied areas via automated profiling observations will improve both numerical weather prediction (NWP) accuracy as well provide significant benefits to anti-submarine warfare operating in typically data-sparse domains.