Fiscal Year	2015
Division	Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department	Physics
Investigator(s)	Cohn, Keith R. Blau, Joseph A.
Sponsor	Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Navy)
Summary	High energy lasers offer advantages over conventional kinetic weapons; however, lasers can be strongly affected by the prevailing weather conditions. Understanding how HEL performance degrades can guide the Navy in the development of tactics against these threats. This project, which continues research conducted in FY2014, considers how weather conditions affect the effective range for HELs. Our physics-based methodology uses both existing and custom codes and considers linear effects such as turbulence, absorption, scattering, humidity, haze, aerosols, precipitation, fog, as well as non-linear effects such as thermal blooming. We will expand the capabilities of our modeling tools to better characterize the turbulence near the ocean surface (in the marine boundary layer). We will also explore atmospheric forecasting models and data sets in relevant operational theaters.
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Publications	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal