NASA Ocean Winds Proposal Selected

Timothy Lang (ST11) is the Principal Investigator and Aaron Kaulfus (ST11) is a Co-Investigator (Co-I) on a proposal titled “Using CYGNSS with a suite of spaceborne remote sensing datasets to probe tropical maritime cold pool evolution from space”, which was recently selected for funding by NASA. CYGNSS stands for Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System, and the proposal seeks to combine CYGNSS and other scatterometer measurements of ocean winds using machine learning to detect and track cold pools (i.e., gust front winds) from tropical maritime convection throughout their lifetimes. This work will enable a more process-oriented look at how convectively driven cold pools interact with convection and the local environment. Data from NASA precipitation sensors and NOAA geostationary observations will be included in the analysis as well. The project will last for three years, and it includes University of Alabama in Huntsville (Co-I George Priftis) as a local partner.