MSRC Professor Brian Cole and his Ph.D. student Joe Olson returned recently from an 8-day field campaign off of the southeastern Alaskan coast in mid-October where they study high winds that run parallel to the steep coastal terrain, or ‘barrier jets.’ Olson noted that this area off of Juneau is a hot spot for intense coastal winds due to the mountainous terrain, which rises from sea level up to 3 km within a distance of about 50 km. Colle added that several storms in the last decade had winds exceeding hurricane force. “Right now,” he said, “we don’t understand the reasons and locations for the local accelerations of winds in these coastal areas. The goal is to improve forecasting in these regions.” This forecasting is particularly important to aviation, fishing and shipping industries.
The SARJET project is a 3-year collaborative effort, funded by the Mesoscale Dynamic Meteorology Program at the National Science Foundation, which includes Stony Brook University, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, and the University of Washington. SARJET refers both to the satellite data from the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) of the winds (JET), as well as the project location – Southern Alaska Region JET. Olson noted, “The satellite data is coupled to aircraft measurements to reconstruct the 3-dimensional structure of these winds.” Colle further explained, “There are not many atmospheric observations in the coastal zone over the water, especially right above the surface, so we fly aircraft through storms to better understand the wind field structure, precipitation, sea state, and air-sea interactions in these regions.”
An atmospheric research plane, the Wyoming King Air Aircraft (University of Wyoming), measured 10 events during the sampling period. Olson will use the data as a case study for his thesis on barrier jets and land falling fronts. “Overall,” Colle noted, “the trip was very successful. It was the first time anyone had probed three dimensionally in that coastal area.”
