A government-sponsored scientific research project involved with dropsonde observations will significantly improve the accuracy of typhoon forecasts, further enhancing the effectiveness of disaster-prevention measures to be launched when typhoons strike Taiwan, according to the National Science Council.
The tragedy of losing lives and properties during typhoon seasons became more pronounced in the past few years, due to real-estate developments in densely populated areas.
Especially in September 2001, when Typhoon Nari swept the country, leaving the Taipei metropolitan area flooded for days, inaccurate weather forecasts were blamed by not only residents but also decisionmakers involved with taking emergency measures.
To improve the accuracy of typhoon forecasting, the council launched a three-year research project at a cost of NT$90 million last year August, focusing on "dropsonde observation" as the most important part of the typhoon-surveillance project.
"It's worthwhile, when compared with the huge financial losses caused by natural disasters triggered by typhoons," council Vice-Chairman Liao Chun-chen (廖俊臣) said at a press conference yesterday.
According to project coordinator Chun-Chieh Wu (吳俊傑), an atmospheric scientist at National Taiwan University, a G100 Astra SPX aircraft operated by Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC) has been equipped with the Airborne Vertical Atmosphere Profiling System, with which scientists can trace dropsondes thrown outside a typhoon at a height of 12,800m and measure the atmospheric state parameters during their descent.
By using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, specifications captured by dropsonde sensors, such as air pressure, temperature, humidity, wind speed and others, could be obtained immediately.
"The real-time data, which we scientists can use to picture the structure of a typhoon and predict its track, can be transferred to the Central Weather Bureau from the aircraft in seconds," Wu said.
Wu said the US' experience of flying synoptic surveillance missions around typhoons suggest that the observation produces a 10 to 30 percent reduction in track forecast errors involving hurricanes.
The project is co-hosted by Po-Hsiung Lin (林博雄), another National Taiwan University atmospheric scientist and Yeh Tien-chiang (葉天降), director of the bureau's Weather Forecast Center.
According to researchers, the best time to carry out the observation is 24 to 60 hours prior to the approach of a typhoon. The aircraft will spend five hours flying outside a typhoon to capture data by throwing 15 to 20 dropsondes.
The 450g disposable dropsondes, known as the RD93 GPS Dropsonde, is made by the Vaisala Group in Finland. Each one costs NT$3,000.
The project makes Taiwan only the second country in the world after the US working on typhoon surveillance involving dropsonde observations in this region of the northwest Pacific.
According to researchers, the US Navy, which terminated a similar observation project in 1987 in Guam, will resume observations this summer focusing on a more challenging task -- capturing data by flying into the eye of the typhoon.
Wu said that combining data from Taiwan and the US Navy would reveal the real face of a typhoon, a fascinating complex fluid mechanism still puzzling scientists.
Wu said that the data from the project would be shared with nearby countries such as Japan and the Phillipines.
Wu said the project interested US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Information exchanges between Taiwan and personnel of the Hurricane Research Division of the NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory was launched last year.
Before the pilot study ends in July 2005 the AIDC aircraft will be used for about 80 flying hours to observe typhoons.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods