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CAMEX-4
CAMEX-4 is focused on the study of tropical cyclone (hurricane) development, tracking, intensification, and landfalling impacts using NASA-funded aircraft and surface remote sensing instrumentation. The primary aircraft used during CAMEX-4 are the NASA DC-8 and ER-2 research airborne platforms. These instrumented aircraft will fly over, through, and around selected hurricanes as they approachlandfall in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and along the east coast of the United States. The NASA aircraft will investigate upper altitude regions of the hurricane not normally sampled. Where possible, measurements will be compared and validated with coincident observations from the QuikSCAT, Terra, and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellites. This study will yield high spatial and temporal information of hurricane structure, dynamics, and motion. These data, when analyzed within the context of more traditional aircraft, satellite, and ground-based radar observations,should provide additional insight to hurricane modelers and forecasters who continually strive to improve hurricane predictions.More accurate hurricane predictions at landfall will result in decreasing the size of necessary coastal evacuations and increasing the warning time for those areas. While remote sensing of the hurricane environment is the primary objective of CAMEX-4, there will also be separate flights to study thunderstorm structure, precipitation systems, and atmospheric water vapor profiles. This portion of CAMEX-4 is known as KAMP, Keys Area Microphysics Project. The objective of the KAMPflights is to improve quantitative precipitation estimates from passive and active microwave instruments. For more information, link to "http://camex.msfc.nasa.gov/"