Navy meteorological experts aren\u2019t just trying to get a better weather forecast. \u201cWe are trying to fix battlespace awareness for warfare commanders,\u201d said Asya Andrews, the Navy\u2019s chief aerographer\u2019s mate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the leading chief petty officer with Strike Group Oceanography Team at Naval Base Coronado in San Diego, Andrews is part of a team working to introduce highly-advanced precision meteorological tools to improve warfighter capability and protect ISR assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The team recently unveiled a weather prediction system to improve the National Unified Operational Prediction Capability (NUOPC), which helps to determine weather models for the military. \u201cThis should allow us to better identify extreme features, things like severe weather. It also makes the terrain more influential in the model: Mountains act like mountains, instead of like rolling hills. It\u2019s a higher level of precision,\u201d said Kevin LaCroix, weather services technical lead at the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That higher degree of accuracy doesn\u2019t just tell forecasters the likelihood of rain. It tells military commanders how to make best use of their sensors and other ISR assets, whose function can be disrupted by inclement weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe forecaster can be more confident in telling the commander that an ISR asset placed here will or will not see the target. You can even be proactive: Tell me the places you want to look at, and I\u2019ll tell you where you will be most likely to be able to collect your intel on a given day,\u201d LaCroix said. \u201cIf we assume ISR assets are in high demand, this offers us a chance to maximize their use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Improved targeting<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Climate conditions can wreak havoc on military intel. Understanding the weather in minute and granular detail is a hedge against possible disruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCloud ceilings play a big role in ISR. For the blue force to have the advantage, if you have a ceiling at 500 feet and a ScanEagle at 1,000 — that\u2019s not very effective. You need a cloud-free line of site. The same is true for targeting. When we use a UAV to light up a target for a fighter jet, they need that clear line of site,\u201d Andrews said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Temperature likewise can have an impact on targeting sensors. \u201cWhat\u2019s the outside temperature versus what\u2019s the temperature of the target? That plays an ISR role as well. If you are trying to target a certain part of a building, not everything holds or releases heat in the same way, so knowing the surrounding temperature is important,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cWhich way is the wind blowing? If it\u2019s blowing across cool water before it gets to an area, that is going to impact the electro-optic sensors of a UAV. If you have a cool wind blowing, that target may not show up as well against that background.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The newly released enhancement, a probabilistic numerical weather prediction system, offers a new way to synthesize data culled from multiple sources. It\u2019s a way of automating the analytic process to get a more accurate picture from a wider range of samples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt takes the observations from all these ships, the land stations, the buoys and the air stations, and feeds them into a single model,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cWhat you get is a forecast from zero to 100 percent on the likelihood of any given weather event occurring. You\u2019ll get readings for wind, pressure, humidity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weather experts draw a distinction between deterministic and probabilistic models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDeterministic forecasting can say there is going to be a hurricane here with winds of 50 knots, and then that doesn\u2019t happen. It\u2019s precise,<\/i> but it\u2019s wrong,\u201d LaCroix said. \u201cThe probabilistic model says it will happen sometime during this window, and it will be in this range of strength. We know the real answer will fall in there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For ISR purposes, the important point is that the probabilistic model will be more likely to give you a clear head\u2019s up when things are about to take a turn for the worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat this method is really good at is identifying outliers,\u201d LaCroix said. \u201cIf you think there is going to be an extreme event, you get some confidence around that. If the weather is going to definitely be different, this model can forecast that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Navy team is working to introduce highly-advanced precision meteorological tools to improve warfighter capability and protect ISR assets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":80894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,29,16,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2063],"class_list":["post-28711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-it-networks","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"4WNVMBP6GVGL7C2KO7HA5WYBWE","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2018\/09\/24\/a-better-way-for-drones-to-see-their-targets\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n