(CNN) - NASA is using a modified version of the U-2 spy plane, which was designed during the Cold War, to study one of the most mysterious weather phenomena on the planet: storms caused by wildfires.
The jet, which NASA called ER-2, includes a flying laboratory equipped with scientific instruments instead of military defensive systems, and its latest mission is to study weather storms resulting from fires.
Fire clouds are scientifically known as “pyrocumulonimbus storms,” which are massive thunderstorms caused by the intense heat of forest fires.
These storms may be accompanied by the formation of lightning, strong winds, and fire tornadoes in some cases.
Naval Research Laboratory meteorologist David A. "The smoke from the fire is pushed up into the thunderstorm, and it speeds up as it goes up that vertical column, and then it's released," Peterson explains.
Peterson is the principal investigator on the mission called the INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment, or INSPYRE for short. It is a mission aimed at studying the volatile and unpredictable behavior of these storms.
“The smoke plume is like a warm bubble that stimulates a thunderstorm,” Peterson said. “It’s like any other high-altitude, powerful thunderstorm cloud, except it’s saturated with smoke. At this point, the fire basically feeds itself.”
Meteorologists were unable to accurately predict the occurrence of “cumulonimbus storms” due to their formation under difficult to predict conditions.
Scientists have only recently discovered that these atmospheric systems caused by fires are able to penetrate the natural atmospheric barrier and reach the stratosphere.
“There is an effect similar to a volcanic eruption, where the smoke is pushed high into the atmosphere,” Peterson explained. “We have realized in recent years that once the smoke reaches these high altitudes, it can be carried by jet streams very quickly.”
The mission launched in July, and the plane has already flown over wildfire areas burning in northern Oregon and western Canada.
It should be noted that NASA, which is responsible for aviation research and space exploration, uses ER-2 aircraft due to their superior ability to fly at high altitudes.
“It can be thought of as a steerable satellite,” Peterson said. “It flies above the weather at an altitude of about 20,000 metres, and we can actually have it orbit back and forth over an area that is experiencing wildfires.”
He added: "All the devices on board the plane are related to measuring the energy characteristics of a smoke column fire. Therefore, there are radar devices that can determine the size and height of this column, in addition to the movement of the air inside it. They also track lightning, and thus monitor the electric field inside these clouds."
While the ER-2 aircraft flies above the storm, NASA simultaneously directs a Gulfstream 5 jet into the clouds.
“The idea is that the data each aircraft collects can be used to improve the other aircraft’s data,” Peterson explained.
The main goal of this mission is to one day be able to predict such storms.
“The mission will definitely include an aspect of developing better tools to predict this type of fire behavior,” he continued.
The origins of the aircraft and its role in the Cold War
The history of the ER-2 goes back to the mid-1950s, before the era of spy satellites, when the United States needed an aircraft to survey what was happening behind the Iron Curtain.
According to the National Museum of the US Air Force, “Soviet military and economic developments in the early 1950s were a mystery to the United States, given that the Soviet Union was a closed and secretive society.”
The U-2 spy plane, nicknamed the “Dragon Lady,” was specifically designed to fly at extremely high altitudes over the territory of the Soviet Union.
At that time, the United States assumed that there were no Soviet missiles capable of reaching the altitude at which the plane was flying, giving it freedom to move and fly over the country.
But on May 1, 1960, just four years after the U-2 entered service, the Soviet military shot down one of these planes, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, proving that the United States had underestimated Soviet capabilities.
However, the U-2 continued to provide critical intelligence throughout the remainder of the Cold War, particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War, as well as the more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, more than 70 years after its first flight, the plane is still flying in the air.
