Jul 7 2009
From The Space Library
NASA announced plans to fund the development of a prototype system to provide aircraft with updates about severe storms and turbulence as they fly across ocean regions. Scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) based in Boulder, Colorado, in partnership with colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, had developed the system, which combined satellite data and computer weather models with artificial intelligence techniques to identify and predict rapidly evolving storms and other areas of turbulence. One of the system’s artificial intelligence techniques was the so-called random forests technique, a method of short-term forecasting that had proven useful for predicting thunderstorms over land. John A. Haynes, Program Manager in the Earth Science Division’s Applied Sciences Program at NASA Headquarters, explained that turbulence was the leading cause of injuries in commercial aviation. Haynes said that NASA considered the new technique of critical importance to pilots because it used key space-based indicators to detect turbulence associated with ocean storms. Designed to help steer pilots away from intense weather, the prototype system would identify areas of turbulence in clear regions of the atmosphere, as well as in storms. Scientists were incorporating into the system a variety of observations from NASA spacecraft, including data from NASA’s Terra, Aqua, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), CloudSat, and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellites. NASA planned to test the prototype system in 2010.
NASA, “NASA Research To Help Aircraft Avoid Ocean Storms, Turbulence,” news release 09-154, 7 July 2009, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2009/jul/HQ09-154_Turbulence_Research.html (accessed 10 August 2011).
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