Upcoming Projects
Cold Air Outbreak Experiment in the Sub-Arctic Region (CAESAR)
02/22/2024 – 04/07/2024
Kiruna, Sweden
One of Earth’s most intense air mass transformations happens when cold Arctic air flows out over the much warmer open oceans in so-called Cold-Air Outbreaks (CAOs). The surface heat fluxes are among the highest observed on Earth, supporting highly convective clouds capable of producing heavy snowfall and occasionally spawning intense “polar lows.” Surprisingly little is known about their Lagrangian evolution, the relationship between up- and downstream conditions, and between the surface fluxes, boundary-layer structure, cloud and precipitation properties, and mesoscale circulations. These clouds provide a powerful modeling test bed for improving the representation of mixed-phase cloud processes in large eddy simulations, numerical weather prediction, and global climate models.
Thus, the PI team proposes a dedicated field campaign, Cold Air Outbreak Experiment in the Sub-Arctic Region (CAESAR), to examine the structure of marine boundary layer clouds during CAOs. CAESAR will deploy the NSF/NCAR C-130 aircraft, with in situ and remote sensors sampling Arctic air masses from the CAO origin at the ice edge throughout their transformation downstream. A rich array of airborne radars and lidars, aerosol, cloud, precipitation, and trace gas probes, deployed during CAO events over the open waters between northern Sweden and the Arctic ice edge for 45 days in early 2024, will provide a detailed characterization that will form the backbone of modeling studies across a range of scales and form a long-lasting legacy dataset.
Scientific Steering Committee:
Paquita Zuidema, University of Miami
Bart Geerts, University of Wyoming
Greg McFarquhar, University of Oklahoma
Eclipse Observations with the Airborne Coronal Emission Surveyor (ACES)
12/13/2023 – 04/08/2024
Texas
The Airborne Coronal Emission Surveyor (ACES) is a new instrument using the Airborne Stabilized Platform for Infrared Experiments (ASPIRE) to explore the large-scale coronal IR emission spectrum during the 2024 total solar eclipse. ACES and ASPIRE will fly on the NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V along the path of totality during the second Great American Eclipse in 2024. ACES will use the 20 cm optical feed from ASPIRE to map emission line intensity as a function of radius and solar magnetic structure.
The program builds on the SAO team’s experience developing airborne IR instrumentation, including the Airborne Infrared Spectrometer (AIR-Spec), a cryogenic IR spectrometer that observed the 2017 and 2019 eclipses, and ASPIRE, built and ground tested during the pandemic with GV commissioning flights completed in December 2021. AIR-Spec observed a narrow range of wavelengths and imaged along only one dimension.
The PIs propose to expand their IR coronal program by surveying the entire 1–4 μm spectral range at high spectral resolution and in two spatial dimensions as a function of solar conditions and radius. ACES, the new imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS), will search for viable lines for measuring the coronal magnetic field and plasma diagnostics at large solar radii. It will be commissioned during the April 8, 2024, North American eclipse from the NSF/NCAR GV, with a solar feed provided by ASPIRE. A GV altitude of up to 14 km will enable ACES to survey the near and mid-IR with minimal atmospheric interference. ACES is expected to observe neutral helium and 18 forbidden lines of ionized magnesium, silicon, sulfur, argon, calcium, and iron, and it may measure weaker lines of those and other ions.
Scientific Steering Committee:
Jenna Samra – Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Past Projects
Atmospheric Emissions and Reactions Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas (AEROMMA)
06/2023 – 08/2023
Palmdale, CA & Dayton, OH
AEROMMA will provide new observations during the summer of 2023 from megacities to the marine environment using airborne, surface, satellite observing systems, and state-of-the-art air quality and climate models.
The objectives include the following:
- improve representation of emissions and chemical and physical processes in the next generation weather-chemistry models;
- provide observations to improve representation of chemistry and aerosol microphysics in the marine atmosphere;
- quantify emissions and source attribution urban areas;
- reductions in global climate model uncertainties through provisions of improved observational constraints;
- comprehensive aircraft observations of atmospheric composition under Tempo (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution)
- value assessment and risk reduction for future satellite missions such as GeoXO (NOAA’s Geostationary Extended Observations).
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory
csl.aeromma.mgrs@noaa.gov