Uncrewed Ocean Gliders and Saildrones Support Hurricane Forecasting and Research Oceanography

In the United States alone, hurricanes have been responsible for thousands of deaths and over US$1 trillion in damages since 1980 (https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/). These impacts are significantly greater globally, particularly in regions with limited hurricane early warning systems and where large portions of the population live at or near sea level. The high socioeconomic impacts of tropical cyclones will increase with a changing climate, rising sea level, and increasing coastal populations. To mitigate these impacts, efforts are underway to improve hurricane track and intensity forecasts, which drive storm surge models and evacuation orders and guide coastal preparations. Hurricane track forecasts have improved steadily over past decades, while intensity forecasts have lagged until recently (Cangialosi et al., 2020). Hurricane intensity changes are influenced by a combination of large-scale atmospheric circulation, internal storm dynamics, and air-sea interactions (Wadler et al., 2021, and references therein).