University of Miami's CSTARS to host valuable hurricane, typhoon satellite image library

Joint effort between UM, Canadian Space Agency, NOAA and NASA to provide free images to scientific community

MIAMI, Fla. -- The University of Miami’s Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS), a major program of the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science today announced that it will house a library of data collected via spaceborne C-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The initiative, led by the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), in cooperation with CSTARS, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will provide approved scientists with free access to images that will help them to better understand the dynamics of hurricane and typhoon genesis, morphology and movement.

The high quality images show many of the hidden ocean surface details of an approaching hurricane --the eye of the hurricane and the surface impression that it causes, along with the accompanying rain bands. The importance of the air-water interface zone has been long recognized as a determining factor gauging the intensity of an approaching hurricane. Although excellent imagery of the topside of hurricanes has been available for decades from NOAA, and more recently, data through the vertical columns of the cloud mass, the complementary imagery of a hurricane’s surface effects provides valuable information that can help to shape storm models and resource distribution.

“The generosity and dedication to science by the Canadian Space Agency is inspiring, and will make a major contribution to the utilization of SAR imagery in hurricane and typhoon forecasting. The fact that SAR sees the ocean surface, even in extreme storm conditions, is a critical factor for understanding the dynamics and intensity of tropical storm systems,” said Dr. Hans C. Graber, co-director of CSTARS and chair of the University of Miami’s Division of Applied Marine Physics.

CSTARS will host the database on behalf of the sponsors for the duration of the project. Scientists will be asked to submit a letter of intent, as well as a proposal in order to allow the selection those research projects that will be chosen for support in the form of free imagery. The entire collection of images will take 5 TB of space, which will be processed using CSTARS’ high performance computing suite.