An interview with Bill Read of the National Hurricane Center, Part 2

Read Part 1: An interview with Bill Read of the National Hurricane Center
NOAA 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Outlook Summary

Homeland1.com caught up with Bill Read, head of the NOAA Tropical Prediction Center, by phone last month while he was attending the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference and talked about what's new at the hurricane center, where forecasting technology is going and why you can't get everything you need from a satellite. Following is part two of the interview.

Homeland1: Is there anything approaching a consensus within NOAA or within the National Hurricane Center as to the long-term effects, and define “long-term” however you wish, of global climate change on what we’re looking at in terms of hurricanes in the U.S.?

NOAA Tropical Prediction Center Director Bill Read. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)

Read: If anything, there’s no consensus other than that the data is not clear as to which way we’re going on that. The various climate models that are being run that take into account the known factors in climate change. i.e., the temperature, the atmospheric temperature and what that will proceed at, depending on the scenarios of greenhouse gases, come up with different answers, on both numbers and intensities, of hurricanes in the future.

I’m not surprised. A hurricane being a relatively rare event compared to cold fronts and winter storms and the like that occur constantly around the globe, this is a tough nut to crack. From just a conceptual basis, there’s not a whole lot of agreement that there will be that much of an impact on tropical cyclones.

Much greater impact is being caused by the unabated growth of infrastructure by us moving to coastlines. This is already obvious if you look at the damage data normalized on today’s dollars, which has been going up exponentially half of the last century and up till now, even though the number of storms hasn’t changed at all. The problem is the building on the coast.

Homeland1: I’ve heard both sides of that debate. One expert I spoke with emphasized the effect of ocean water temperatures on hurricane energy.

(AP Photo/NOAA)

Read: The water temperature is only one factor. Some of the lectures I’ve sat through indicated that overcompensating for that is a problem. There are atmospheric changes also, like drier air, warmer air aloft, different profiles of moisture. There are a lot of things that play into getting a hurricane. For example, last year we had plenty of above-normal-temperature water in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean north of the islands. Not a whole lot happened there. All the activity was down south, so other factors played into that difference last year.

Trying to predict those on an annual basis is a craps shoot right now, so predicting long-term climate based on small changes is difficult if not impossible.

Homeland1: So the weak point in trying to make that prediction is a lack of historical data?

Read: Partly, and it’s the complexity of both the ocean and the atmospheric response to climate in general. I think if you find a true believer on either side of it, they’ll go hardwired to whatever solution fits their true believer part, but for most of the folks in the practical end of the world that I work with, I think they’re accepting the fact that there’s a lot more we need to learn and that the jury is still out on where the science will go relative to hurricanes.

Homeland1: What have NOAA and the National Hurricane Center been able to do in terms of broadening or intensifying their sensor information to account for those kinds of things?

Read: The primary data gathered for us is satellite, so every improvement in satellite technology that goes up in space usually adds quite a bit to our data portfolio. The other big thing that improves our forecasts is the steady progression of better computers, able to run more sophisticated computer models of the atmosphere. That has led to our gains in some of the forecasts.

The other linchpin that we probably need to shore up a little more, and are working towards with our proposals for a high-end research project, is capturing the rapid changes in intensity of individual storms. Right now we don’t have much skill at that, and we’re looking for a sophisticated research project to get us there.

Homeland1: So you can track what’s pouring fuel on a hurricane and what’s weakening it?

Read: Exactly. Sometimes we’ve had a hurricane go from a Category 1 to a Category 4 in less than 24 hours. Our sophisticated computer models rarely if ever capture any of that, so we need to find out why. Then once we find out why, can we develop a model that will solve that? And once we’ve come up with that model, what data do we need to feed that model so that we have that in our arsenal for operational forecasting?

Homeland1: How would you get more information to enable you to do that? Are we talking about better satellite sensing?

Read: Until we know exactly what we need, it could be anything. The sensors in space become the most efficient way to do it, but sometimes that’s not practical, and the reconnaissance aircraft has already added a lot to what we do, and in my opinion at least, will continue for the foreseeable future as being the most likely platform for the kinds of sensors we're looking for.

Homeland1: So those guys in the C-130s are still going to have to buckle in tight and ride through the eyewall.

Read: Exactly. There’s work being done on using drones, or unmanned aircraft, but that’s in its infancy, an experimental stage, obviously. They augment some of the reconnaissance data, but are not anywhere near close to ready to replace it.

Homeland1: I can imagine that something, say, Predator-sized would have a hard time in a hurricane.

Read: Well, actually, the ones they've successfully gotten into or up to hurricane-force winds are relatively small aircraft launched from the tops of vehicles, so believe it or not, you can design one of those. I was surprised also. The beauty of that is they can be built on a cost basis a lot cheaper than some of the more rigorous drones that are out there for military use. But even those are being looked at, because they have a better payload capacity.

Homeland1: It sounds like some interesting work.

Read: Someone thinks, "When are you ever going to be done with this?" Well, I’ve been doing this for 35 years, and I think we are a long way from solving all the problems. (laughs)

Back to Part 1