Award Data

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are primary drivers of global climate change. Hence there is a crucial need to quantify their sources and sinks. A powerful method to constrain source and sink strengths is the analysis of the relative proportions of isotopic variants of GHG’s in atmospheric samples like those collected globally by NOAA’s Cooperative Air Sampling Network. Measurements that are ca ...

Inexperienced swimmers are often unaware of the presence of treacherous rip currents and this leads to many drowning deaths each year. Even when signs are posted, the public probably does not clearly understand the danger. It would be more informative if the public were ale to maps of the location, speed, and direction of coastal currents. Ocean safety officials are using various methods to inform ...

There are currently no inexpensive, expendable air-deployed monitoring systems (Dropsondes) that measure atmospheric data and oceanographic as a function of depth. These are important data in predicting the intensity and path of hurricanes. Boston Engineering proposes to provide NOAA with a solution to this challenge with the Multi-Purpose Above Surface/Below Surface Expendable Dropsonde (MASED) p ...

During the Phase I program, Aurora conducted a comprehensive survey of potential platforms that included government owned and furnished UAVs and manned aircraft as well as Aurora’s Centaur Optionally Piloted Aircraft (OPA). The survey concluded, in part, that UAVs offer a significant improvement in data collection capability when compared to manned aircraft that are currently fielded by NOAA. ...

Passive microwave sensors aboard satellites provide valuable information regarding weather conditions by measuring atmospheric attenuation over a broad range of frequencies from 0-200 GHz. Additional ground-based sensors are desirable to provide complementary upward looking measurements that can be used to refine existing attenuation models. Operating over such a large bandwidth, however, places ...