Better Hurricane prediction

Looking at the 'core' will improve hurricane predictions

By MATT SEDENSKY
The Associated Press May 27, 2007

MIAMI — Meteorologists have spent decades drastically improving predictions on where a looming hurricane could hit — warnings that potentially drive millions of people from their homes. Now, they aim to better determine how powerful those storms actually will be. Next month, forecasters will debut their new Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model, which for the first time will take into account most data from within the storm and use it in real time to better determine its strength.

The processes at the inner core are not well informed and not well predicted," senior hurricane specialist Richard Pasch said at the National Hurricane Center. "With the HWRF, we're hoping that we can analyze that middle core." Until now, experts have mostly relied on the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory model which, like those before it, mainly depended on initial storm information paired with historical data for similar storms. The higher-resolution new model will consider conditions over the oceans that have never been plugged into models before.
It could take years, and some tinkering, for the new model to realize its full potential. But forecasters hope the result will be a greater understanding of storms like hurricanes Charley and Wilma, which grew substantially stronger in a matter of hours. Wilma went from being a tropical storm to the strongest Atlantic hurricane on record in a day.
The hope is that the model will better predict the strength of a hurricane when it eventually makes landfall and ultimately save lives.

The National Hurricane Center has cut its average forecast error on storm tracks in half over the past 15 years. Average track errors last year were about 55 miles on one-day forecasts, about 111 miles on two-day predictions and 169 miles on three days' ahead.
In the same period, two-day forecasts for the intensity of all tropical cyclones improved from an average of about 18 mph to about 17 mph.

"We've made those improvements in track but we've made little improvement in forecasting intensity," Pasch said. "It was what the science allows. We understand more about hurricane track than intensity."

With the HWRF, that should change. Information from hurricane hunter aircraft, satellites and other sources will immediately relay wind conditions in and around the storm, temperature, pressure, humidity and other oceanic and atmospheric conditions and analyze them to better determine the track and intensity.

Naomi Surgi, who coordinates the hurricane modeling program at the National Center for Climate Prediction in Camp Springs, Md., said using real-time data provides the most accurate forecasts.

"You have to with as much accuracy as possible describe what that hurricane is doing now," she said, adding HWRF shows great promise. "It's getting the storm right, it's getting the ocean underneath the storm right, it's getting the environment around the storm right."
The model has been in development since 2001. Surgi said while improvements will begin the day after it goes operational next month, the model is expected to be used for the next 10 to 15 years.

Forecasters will also test a new radar technique that allows meteorologists to determine wind speeds and barometric pressures in all parts of a storm every few minutes, not the several hours it takes to get readings from hurricane hunter aircraft, said Colin McAdie, a hurricane center meteorologist.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research's method of analyzing radar images gives a three-dimensional view of hurricanes that are within 120 miles of land and will warn if storms are strengthening or weakening unexpectedly, he said.

The hurricane center's new director, Bill Proenza, has warned there is at least one major threat to forecasters' accuracy. The QuikScat weather satellite, designed to last five years, is in its seventh year of operation, and it is only a matter of time until it fails. The device gives forecasters basic storm information like wind speed and Proenza has said he is unaware of any plans to allocate an estimated $400 million to replace it.

That aside, even with the expected improvements the HWRF could bring, Surgi said meteorologists still concede they will never deliver error-free hurricane forecasts.
"We have stopped thinking in terms of 100 percent accuracy," she said, "because I don't think it will ever be realistic to expect that."

Torrey Pines scientists looking for ways to help you live longer

By ROBERT BARBA
robert.barba@scripps.com
May 7, 2007

Eugene Levin will be here Tuesday looking for $1.4 million so that he can help people see. The scientist from Torrey Pines Institute of Molecular Studies will ask Treasure Coast investors to fund his spin-off company, developing a treatment for a blinding illness known as wet macular degeneration.

Levin is one of two Torrey Pines scientists, along with a third from the University of California, San Diego, speaking at the Angel Investment Forum of Florida's Treasure Coast chapter meeting. They represent the first wave of research tying this region to the institute. Levin's style of basic research with possible real-life implications is the sort of science Torrey Pines President Richard Houghten has promised to bring to Port St. Lucie starting this summer. Last week Torrey Pines announced it has hired its first three senior scientists that will launch the San Diego-based center's Florida operation.

"In Florida, our scientists will have one foot in each camp of basic research and practical discovery," Houghten said. "Their job is to do solid science, but with a look toward how this could be useful."

Levin discovered his possible treatment while researching the Fibroblast Growth Factor protein. In one size of the protein, Levin found it did some important things: inhibited cell movement and stimulated cells to divide.

From the way bodies develop, wounds heal and diseases spread, cell movement affects nearly every facet of life.

"It was one of those instances in which you try something and are shocked to find out that it works differently than you actually thought," said Levin.

Levin needed to separate the part that stops cells from the one that makes them grow. In molecular biology, scientists can clip out functions they don't need.

Originally, Levin thought his finding could be useful in treating cancer. With every research center and big pharmaceutical company searching for a blockbuster cancer drug, he ultimately decided it might be too tangled and competitive. Instead, he started looking into a form of macular degeneration that primarily affects the elderly.

In macular degeneration, abnormal blood vessels grow in the retina, which is in the back of the eye. The growth diminishes the vision of macula, which is responsible for direct sight.
There are two forms of macular degeneration, dry and wet. The dry form affects more people and has few treatments. The wet form is less common but more severe and accounts for 90 percent of all macular degeneration-related blindness, according to The Eye Digest, an online publication of the University of Illinois.

Levin said his possible treatment fits well with macular degeneration because the eye is a closed organ, meaning that there is less worry about side effects.

In animal testing, Levin said the injected treatment has shown "substantial reduction" in the abnormal blood vessel growth.

If Levin finds local funding, his company Motility Inc. could be one of the first biotech firms in the region.

"It all starts with a question. Cell migration is one of the fundamental science questions," Houghten said. "And Gene (Levin) is a perfect example that sometimes you come up with something that can be useful."

RESEARCH AT TORREY PINES

Scientists at Torrey Pines Institute for Molecular Studies investigate what causes diseases, how they work and how to treat or prevent them. Areas of research include heart disease, cancer, diabetes, pain, bioterrorism, multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and immunology.

• Joanna Davies, an immunologist, is investigating cancer and the corresponding wasting of muscles, known as cachexia.

• Vipin Kumar's company, GlycoRegimmune, is developing new ways to treat auto-immune diseases, including AIDS and Alzheimer's. GlycoRegimmune will present Tuesday at the Angel Investment Forum of Florida meeting.

• Clemencia Pinilla, an immunologist, is investigating vaccinations against possible bio-terrorist threats.