- NASA plans to conduct flight missions this summer to study dangerous wildfire-generated storms, aiming to improve forecasting and potentially save lives.
- The agency will fly ER-2 and WB-57 planes into pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which are known to produce choking smoke, thousands of lightning strikes, and firenadoes.
- The experiment, named "INSPYRE" and led by the Naval Research Laboratory, will involve at least two 6-8-week flight missions over the western U.S. or Canada.
- These missions will utilize infrared wildfire trackers on planes and deploy ground-based radar and remote sensing technology to observe cloud formation.
- The research is crucial as human-caused climate change is expected to increase the frequency and severity of wildfires, making current predictions for these complex cloud formations inadequate.
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