The team is opertating multiple vehicles as part of the campaign in Hawaii until March. In that time, the Gulfstream G-IV – which is actually more accustomed to hunting hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean – is expected to make about 20 trips.

The trips take the flight crew and researchers to desolate stretch of tropical ocean where the northern and southern trade winds meet, south of the Hawaiian Islands.

On these trips Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) or "dropsondes" are deployed from the Gulfstream some 45,000 feet in the air, and slowed by a small parachute, fall toward the water, transmitting wind speed and direction, humidity and other atmospheric data back to the plane continuously on it's descent to deep blue.