Preparing for Hurricanes

Photo credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce

One of the most exciting anticipated applications of the Digital Oceans Project is in the area of monitoring and models for extreme events, particularly hurricanes. U.S. financial losses due to hurricanes were estimated at more than $53 billion in the last decade. Although hurricane-related deaths in the U.S. have greatly decreased, other countries regularly suffer heavy losses. This is largely because they lack the satellites, aircraft and ground-based radar used to provide warnings in the United States. Ocean-based hurricane observation systems could greatly increase forecasting abilities and significantly decrease the number of deaths and economic loss.

In addition, the coupled nature of the ocean and the atmosphere provides further rationale for increasing the ocean-based study of hurricanes. Sea Grant's parent organization, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), supports extensive atmospheric monitoring aimed primarily at weather prediction. While the oceans are known to play a large part in weather processes, the atmosphere has been much more intensively studied. It is clear that studying hurricanes from an ocean perspective rather than a solely atmospheric one is of great importance.

Two Digital Ocean research topics would be well-suited to investigate this area of extreme event monitoring and modeling. The first topic involves the development of new in situ sensors capable of being used in a hurricane. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), which have been used in many types of research and in hostile environments, might be modified to study the water column beneath hurricanes. Alternatively, new drifting sensors or rapidly deployed robust moorings might be developed to ride through a hurricane.

A second area of investigation is the use of acoustic systems to provide greater spatial coverage of the ocean. Preliminary research indicates that hurricanes and other ocean storms may have distinctive acoustic signatures, which could be tracked over great distances. Additional research in this area is highly recommended.

In addition to extreme weather, other aspects of extreme events, such as earthquake monitoring and underwater volcanic activity, could also prove fruitful areas of research. Unlike the hurricane research, which is almost virgin territory, this sort of earthquake research has already been proposed by the National Science Foundation.

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