The University of North Dakota has been awarded a $1 million contract to conduct research on behalf of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in an effort to improve the understanding of thunderstorms.
David Delene is an associate research professor of atmospheric sciences at UND. He says the Cape Experiment 2019 is a partnership between UND, the US Navy and Weather Modification International in Fargo. It will combine aircraft measurements and observations with the Navy's Mid-Course Doppler Radar, or MCR, to develop better cloud models.
"One of the important things about this research is to understant cirrus clouds, so these are the high clouds that get generated by thunderstorms - and computer models right now have a hard time predicting the amount and occurrence of these high, thunderstorm generated clouds. Our measurements would help understand the processes that result in the formation of these particles, and if we better understand the process, it will improve weather models."
Delene says WMI and UND will conduct between 20 and 30 hours of flying in thunderstorm anvils near Cape Canaveral, Florida for two weeks this month. He says both students and graduate students will be participating in gathering and analyzing the research. He says it's a great opportunity for students to work at a higher level. The project will expand the work of previous UND/WMI/Navy research projects from 2010 and 2015.