Hawksbill sea turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata) and Hawaiian monk seals (Neomonachus schauinslandi) are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) are listed as threatened. All three species use beaches throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago that are remote and difficult to access. This has precluded comprehensive investigations of these species by the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC) Protected Species Division (PSD) in remote areas which has inhibited holistic population evaluations of these priority species.

In an effort to determine whether use of a UAS APH-22 hexacopter would cause disturbance to endangered Hawaiian monk seals or seabirds, the team at the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center’s Hawaiian Monk Seal Research Program embarked on an exploratory study in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI).

During 2015 and 2016, NOAA conducted three field campaigns using the NASA Global Hawk autonomous aircraft outfitted with GPS dropwindsondes and remote sensors. The Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) project evaluated the potential ability of this high-altitude aircraft to collect novel observations to improve forecasts of high-impact weather events including hurricanes. The experiment also examined the effectiveness of employing new technology of this type. A new article to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, led by ESRL PSD with multiple NOAA and joint institute co-authors, provides a an overview of SHOUT and summarize the various missions flown over the two-year campaign, the observations collected and their application, and the results of a diverse set of studies evaluating the impact of the data on multiple operational forecast systems.