Hurricane Earl, currently a Category Two storm on the Saffir-
Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 100 knots (115
miles per hour), continues to push relentlessly toward the U.S.
East Coast, and NASA scientists, instruments and spacecraft are
busy studying the storm from the air and space. Three NASA
aircraft carrying 15 instruments are busy criss-crossing Earl as
part of the agency's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes
mission, or GRIP, which continues through Sept. 30. GRIP is
designed to help improve our understanding of how hurricanes
such as Earl form and intensify rapidly. Among the instruments
participating in GRIP is the High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave
Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer, or HAMSR, developed by
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The
instrument, which flies aboard NASA's Global Hawk uninhabited
aerial vehicle, infers the 3-D distribution of temperature,
water vapor and cloud liquid water in the atmosphere. The Global
Hawk left NASA's Dryden Flight R