• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Thursday, October 2, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Scientists develop new way to measure wind

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 14, 2023
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
Clouds in the sky
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Wind speed and direction provide clues for forecasting weather patterns. In fact, wind influences cloud formation by bringing water vapor together. Atmospheric scientists have now found a novel way of measuring wind – by developing an algorithm that uses data from water vapor movements. This could help predict extreme events like hurricanes and storms.

Clouds in the sky

Credit: None required

Wind speed and direction provide clues for forecasting weather patterns. In fact, wind influences cloud formation by bringing water vapor together. Atmospheric scientists have now found a novel way of measuring wind – by developing an algorithm that uses data from water vapor movements. This could help predict extreme events like hurricanes and storms.

A study published by University of Arizona researchers in the journal Geophysical Research Letters provides, for the first time, data on the vertical distribution of horizontal winds over the tropics and midlatitudes. The researchers got the water vapor movement data by using two operational satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the federal agency for weather forecasting.

Wind brings everything else in the atmosphere together, including clouds, aerosols, water vapor, precipitation and radiation, said Xubin Zeng, co-author of the study and the director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorology Collaborative at UArizona. But it has remained somewhat elusive.

“We never knew the wind very well. I mean, that’s the last frontier. That’s why I’m excited,” Zeng said.

Thanks to more advanced algorithms, Zeng said, the researchers were able to do the estimation of horizontal winds not just at one altitude, but at different altitudes at the same location.

“This was not possible a decade ago,” Zeng said.

Wind measurement typically is done in three different ways, Zeng explained. The first is through the use of radiosonde, an instrumental package suspended below a 6-foot-wide balloon. Sensors on the radiosonde measure wind speed and direction, and take measurements of atmospheric pressure, temperature and relative humidity. The downsides of radiosonde balloons, Zeng said, is the cost. Each launch could cost around $400 to $500, and some regions, such as Africa and the Amazon rainforest, have limited radiosonde stations. The other limitation is that radiosondes are not available over oceans, Zeng said.

Another way to measure wind is using cloud top, which is the height at which the upper visible part of the cloud is located, Zeng said. By tracking cloud top movement using geostationary satellite data, weather experts monitor wind speed and direction at one height. But Zeng said cloud tops exist most of the time below 2 miles or above 4 1/2 miles above Earth’s surface, depending on whether the clouds are low or high. This means wind information is usually not available in the middle, between 2 and 4 1/2 miles.

Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, is a method that precisely measures wind movements at different elevations, and it provides very good data, Zeng said. But with lidar, measurements can be acquired only in one vertical “curtain,” with measured wind typically in the east-west direction, he added.

Nowadays, Zeng said, to study topics like air quality and volcano ash dispersion, which are directly influenced by wind, experts use weather forecasting models to ingest measurements from different sources rather than using direct measurements of wind. But model outputs are not good enough when there is rainfall, Zeng said.

In their study, Zeng and his team avoided using data from models. They instead used data from the movement of water vapor recorded by the two NOAA satellites. The satellites moved in the same direction separated by a 50-minute interval, and they detected the water vapor movement through infrared radiation.

While our eyes cannot detect the minute movements of water vapor in the atmosphere, lead study author Amir Ouyed, a member of Zeng’s research group, used machine-learning algorithms that do better image processing to track water vapor.

“For decades, people were saying, ‘You have to move the cloud top or water vapors enough so that you can see the difference of the pattern.’ But now, we don’t need to do that,” Zeng said.

“The resolution of the data is coarse, with a pixel size of 100 kilometers. It’s a demonstration of the feasibility for our future satellite mission we are pursuing where we hope to provide the 10-kilometer resolution,” Zeng said.

Zeng and his collaborators at other institutions are planning to pursue a new satellite wind mission in which they envision combining water vapor movement data and measurements from wind lidar to provide better wind measurements overall.



Journal

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2022GL101830

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Global Three-Dimensional Water Vapor Feature-Tracking for Horizontal Winds Using Hyperspectral Infrared Sounder Data From Overlapped Tracks of Two Satellites

Article Publication Date

30-Mar-2023

Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

blank

Palladium Filters Pave the Way for More Affordable, Efficient Hydrogen Fuel Production

October 1, 2025
Revolutionary Organic Molecule Poised to Transform Solar Energy Harvesting

Revolutionary Organic Molecule Poised to Transform Solar Energy Harvesting

October 1, 2025

Innovative Biochar Technology Offers Breakthrough in Soil Remediation and Crop Protection

October 1, 2025

CATNIP Tool Expands Access to Sustainable Chemistry Through Data-Driven Innovation

October 1, 2025

POPULAR NEWS

  • New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    New Study Reveals the Science Behind Exercise and Weight Loss

    91 shares
    Share 36 Tweet 23
  • Physicists Develop Visible Time Crystal for the First Time

    74 shares
    Share 30 Tweet 19
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    73 shares
    Share 29 Tweet 18
  • How Donor Human Milk Storage Impacts Gut Health in Preemies

    64 shares
    Share 26 Tweet 16

About

BIOENGINEER.ORG

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Individual Models Shape IPCC Climate Mitigation Findings

Pathogenic Variants Identify Prostate Cancer Genes in African Men

Direct Thoracic Duct Access Cures Neonatal Chylothorax

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 60 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.