NASA is flying 13 miles above Kansas to study severe thunderstorms, effect on climate

NASA pilots are flying 13 miles above Kansas this summer time to determine if intense summertime thunderstorms contribute to local weather change.

The Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer time Stratosphere analysis challenge — consisting of about 50 scientists from eight universities and 4 NASA labs throughout the nation — is within the impact on the Earth’s stratosphere from highly effective thunderstorms often called overshooting storms.

“Now most storms, even most robust storms, occur and dwell out their lives within the lowest a part of the ambiance, which known as the troposphere,” stated Kenneth Bowman, principal investigator and Texas A&M College atmospheric science professor. “The strongest storms nevertheless are so intense that their updrafts can lengthen upward into the stratosphere.”

Bowman stated Salina is the optimum location for this challenge as a result of it “places many of the overshooting storms in North America inside vary of the plane.”

Overshooting storms can carry massive quantities of water and pollution from the decrease ambiance into the stratosphere, which Bowman stated can probably have an effect on each local weather and the quantity of ozone within the ambiance. Consequently, this may contribute to local weather change.

The staff has been in Salina since late Could, Bowman stated, and launch flights each two to 3 days. The flights final from seven to eight hours and attain altitudes of as much as 70,000 toes, “about twice as excessive as an airliner often flies,” Bowman says. The pilot has to put on a full house go well with and helmet to remain in a pressurized setting due to how excessive they’re.

The airplane is outfitted with an array of scientific devices that measure the fabric popping out of the thunderstorms’ tops in addition to wind, turbulence, particle quantity density, particle measurement distribution and extra.

Bowman stated his staff has up to now discovered elevated ranges of water vapor within the stratosphere, which is usually a dry a part of the ambiance.

“What we’re seeing is simply the super quantities of water specifically that these storms are placing into the stratosphere,” Bowman advised The Eagle. “Placing water into the stratosphere is without doubt one of the issues that provides to the greenhouse impact and helps heat the floor up.

“Because the local weather adjustments, which it’s going to proceed to do, these storms might develop into extra extreme, they could transport extra water into the stratosphere [and] they could transport it increased, which may contribute to will increase in world warming.”

That is the second 12 months DCOTSS has been launching flights in Salina as a part of the challenge. The staff additionally deployed flights in July and August 2021, Bowman stated. The staff will keep in Salina for about three extra weeks, after which it would take the airplane again to its residence in Palmdale, California.

Following the flights, the staff will transfer into analyzing and publishing its knowledge, NASA says.

“We’re nonetheless largely within the data-gathering section of the challenge,” Bowman stated. “Folks in fact are analyzing the outcomes from final 12 months and beginning to have a look at the information from this 12 months. We actually count on many of the scientific publications and papers will likely be popping out within the subsequent few years.”