The BBC reports on a new NOAA project to explore the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in scientific research.

The agency has announced a $3m (�1.5m) investment into the technology... for three main purposes: to predict a hurricane's intensity, track how fast Arctic summer ice will melt and whether Pacific storms will flood the west coast of America....

Another advantage of the unmanned aircraft is continuous sampling, opposed to the snapshot values received from manned "hurricane hunters" which drop down tube-like, data-gathering devices to measure moisture, temperature and wind speed....

The UAS used in hurricane Noel is know as a low altitude long endurance (LALE) plane. It is able to fly for a day, at 70 knots (129km/h) with a payload of a few pounds.... On the other extreme is Global Hawk, which is a joint venture with Nasa. Global Hawk can fly up to 30 hours, approaches 300 knots (556km/h), and its creators claims it can cover half the planet in one mission while carrying a payload of 2000 pounds (907kg).