Probing hurricanes NOAA also monitors hurricanes. “Understanding and being able to forecast where those storms are heading, and how intense they’re going to be when they make landfall, is critical,” Dr Cole says. “NOAA, along with the US Air Force and other services, fly hurricane hunter missions in which scientists get on planes and fly through the eye wall of a hurricane.” Minimising the need to put people in harm’s way is a classic use of uncrewed systems, and NOAA is running a series of r&d projects with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Lab in Florida and the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Washington state to deploy uncrewed systems into the storms and provide unique observations in real time to forecasters at the National Weather Service. Cole points out that satellites can only see the surface of the ocean, so if a mass of very warm water is concealed by a cold freshwater ‘lens’ above it, the satellite will only see the cold water. If a hurricane stirs it up, the heat energy is transferred into it and causes rapid intensification of the storm. “If it happens near a land-falling hurricane it can increase the storm from Category 3 to 5, for example, just because of the hot water. Historically, that has been very difficult to forecast.” Buoyancy-driven underwater gliders are already being deployed in the Atlantic to collect detailed information over wide areas and large depth ranges to build an understanding of the ocean’s heat content. In recent years, NOAA has partnered with Saildrone to use a platform designed to withstand hurricanes and collect storm data at the surface. NOAA has also developed aircraftlaunched UAVs and is working to deploy them into storms. In June 2022, as Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida, it launched a small Altius 600 from the WP3D Orion Hurricane Hunter aircraft into the storm, Dr Cole recalls. “It flew around inside Hurricane Ian for about 100 minutes and measured wind speeds faster than the airspeed of the platform itself, which meant it was essentially flying backwards in the storm, as low as 500 ft off the surface of the ocean,” he says. “That information was piped directly to the forecasters at the Hurricane Center, and they were able to verify wind speeds and directions, and provide better information to emergency managers about the severity and likely impact of the storm.” Climate monitoring with Saildrones “We have a mission to send Saildrones to the eastern Tropical Pacific Ocean,” he says. “The sea’s temperature in that region is what determines El Nino or La Nina, which have a major impact on our climate. But it’s in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a long way from everything, so we use robotic sailboats that can stay out for a very long time doing targeted missions to observe and understand the ocean and the atmosphere in those regions.” After a year in the job, Dr Cole now wants to grow the programme. “The potential to apply uncrewed systems to what NOAA is doing is huge, and will bring about their global use as well. I’m keen to explore anything we can do to grow our understanding of the atmosphere and the ocean, and share our knowledge with other parts of the US and other governments.” 23 Uncrewed Systems Technology | December/January 2024 Born in 1980 in Texas, Dr Bryan Cole grew up in the Midwest and developed an interest in nature and science at an early age. He earned bachelor’s degrees in biology and chemistry at St Olaf College in Minnesota, where his uncle and mentor Eric Cole teaches biology. “The first thing about him that comes to mind is the passion and joy he has in being outside and studying the environment. He’s constantly observing and learning, and has a very deep naturalist philosophy,” he says. A PhD in biological sciences from Stanford University followed, during which he spent most of his time at the institution’s Hopkins Marine Station in California, studying developmental biology and toxicology in sea urchins. Postdoctoral work took him to the University of California, Davis, where he developed chemical assays for gauging the impacts of novel contaminants including engineered nanoparticles. His introduction to NOAA came after this postdoctoral work, when he served on the staff of the US House of Representatives supporting the development of ocean policy. That was followed by a job at the US Geological Survey and then NOAA. At NOAA, his focus is on understanding everything the organisation is doing and communicating it to Congress, which has given him what he calls ‘the 60,000 ft view’. “When I started working on this programme in 2020, I found that understanding what everyone was doing helped me support their work,” he says. Dr Bryan Cole
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