Uncrewed Ocean Gliders and Saildrones Support Hurricane Forecasting and Research
Travis Miles, Dongxiao Zhang, Gregory R. Foltz, Jun A. Zhang, Christian Meinig, Francis Bringas, Joaquín Triñanes, Matthieu Le Hénaff, Maria Aristizabal Vargas, Sam Coakley, Catherine Edwards, Donglai Gong, Robert E. Todd, Matthew J. Oliver, Doug Wilson, Kerri A. Whilden, Barbara Kirkpatrick, Patricia Chardón-Maldonado, Julio M. Morell, Debra Hernandez, Gerhard Kuska, Cheyenne Stienbarger, Kathleen Bailey, Chidong Zhang, Scott Glenn, Gustavo Goñi
Abstract
In the United States alone, hurricanes have been responsible for thousands of deaths and over US$1 trillion in damages since 1980 (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/). These impacts are significantly greater globally, particularly in regions with limited hurricane early warning systems and where large portions of the population live at or near sea level. The high socioeconomic impacts of tropical cyclones will increase with a changing climate, rising sea level, and increasing coastal populations. To mitigate these impacts, efforts are underway to improve hurricane track and intensity forecasts, which drive storm surge models and evacuation orders and guide coastal preparations. Hurricane track forecasts have improved steadily over past decades, whileintensity forecasts have lagged until recently (Cangialosi et al., 2020). Hurricane intensity changes are influenced by a combination of large-scale atmospheric circulation, internal storm dynamics, and air-sea interactions (Wadler et al.,2021, and references therein).