Forecast: expect more hurricanes

NOAA's research portfolio as a whole is being cut by nearly 10 percent over 2007's allotment. Many of the cuts result from Congress's decision to forgo earmarks, in which lawmakers can funnel money toward research projects federal agencies may or may not have on their wish lists.

The need for increased hurricane research is outlined in a report from the National Research Council in January that argues for a sustained, coordinated national hurricane research initiative.

These storms present the most costly natural hazards the country faces, notes Roger Lukas, a topical-cyclone researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "The amount of damage hurricanes inflict is 10 times that of earthquakes," he says. "But funding for hurricane research is about one-tenth of the money spent on earthquake research."

Dr. Lukas is one of two lead scientists for a research effort dubbed HiFi, a fledgling project that aims to improve hurricane-intensity forecasts – currently the weakest link in the National Hurricane Center's ability to provide timely warnings about the full impact a storm is likely to have when it makes landfall.

The bottom-up effort, he says, builds on key results from an Office of Naval Research project that uncovered important clues about interactions between the lowest levels of a storm and the upper layer of the ocean underneath it. But the researchers also were motivated by the damage inflicted during the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons.

Last November, the team behind HiFi proposed spending $25 million a year over 10 years, with the goal of delivering the first improvements to intensity forecasts within five years. The cost is largely driven by a heavy reliance on robotic air and underwater vehicles needed to explore regions of the atmosphere and ocean during storms that humans have no way of reaching safely. And it's driven by the project's duration and the need to sample as many storms as possible to have a useful effect on forecasting models. During a typical season, Lukas explains, researchers have about five or six storms to study. "But we need to have at least 20 or 30 cases to have confidence in our conclusions," he adds.

The prospects for dedicated funding for HiFi appear iffy at best. The US Senate is considering a bill that would direct NOAA and the National Science Foundation to initiate a national hurricane research initiative. Lukas says that in his discussions with congressional staffers, they play down prospects for new money, pointing to the rising costs of the war in Iraq and the tax cuts Congress enacted earlier in the Bush administration.

In the meantime, HiFi's scientists are moving ahead using research grants they already are receiving, Lukas says. An additional $25 million would represent a significant jump. Still, Lukas maintains, it's a small price to pay given the enormity of the damage hurricanes can inflict. HiFi's annual price tag would be "about the cost of five houses in Boca Raton" each year, he says, referring to one of the pricey locations north of Fort Lauderdale along Florida's "Gold Coast."

Page: 1 | 2