Abstract
In this paper, a successful flight with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surrounded Typhoon Sinlaku on 15 Sept., 2008 and the preliminary analysis of all the collected data during the observation period has been presented. It is the first time to adopt surrounding method to observe typhoon in mainland of China. During the 3 h field campaign, the flight altitude is about 500 m to observe the essential meteorological elements in boundary layer of typhoon. The average temperature is 22.57°C and ranged from 21.50°C to 25.80°C, while about the relative humidity, the maximum is 100%, the minimum is 80.60% and the average is 97.98%. As for the wind, the average wind speed is 19.68 m/s and the maximum is 30.03 m/s. The typhoon center is a warm structure, the closer to the center, the higher the temperature is and the lower the wind speed is. In conclusion, the mini-UAV has the capability to observe the boundary layer of typhoon.
Highlights
From 1997, National Hurricane Center had used jet engine to carry out sounding observation in the high troposphere and made use of GPS location system, which significantly improved the accuracy of horizontal wind field and timeliness and accuracy of typhoon forecasting [1]-[3]
On the basis of studying the experience on typhoon observation in the international, Meteorological Observation Centre (MOC), China Meteorological Administration had carried out the first field campaign to observe Typhoon Kalmaegi by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in mainland of China on Jul. 18, 2008 [11]
It was observed that the temperature had reached the maximum in the stable altitude at 16:10, which indicated the UAV was close to the Sinlaku typhoon center
Summary
From 1997, National Hurricane Center had used jet engine to carry out sounding observation in the high troposphere and made use of GPS location system, which significantly improved the accuracy of horizontal wind field and timeliness and accuracy of typhoon forecasting [1]-[3]. The results suggested that because of sounding data assimilated into the model, the improved wind error is 1 - 3 m/s in the tropical Western Pacific region. On the basis of studying the experience on typhoon observation in the international, Meteorological Observation Centre (MOC), China Meteorological Administration had carried out the first field campaign to observe Typhoon Kalmaegi by UAV in mainland of China on Jul. 18, 2008 [11]. This observation was successful that all data had been achieved during the observation and the UAV returned safely. The objective of this study is to obtain more observational data, to improve the accuracy of horizontal wind field and accuracy of typhoon forecasting and do contribution to improve typhoon numerical forecasting model
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