From: Antony Clarke
Organization: University of Hawaii, Department of Oceanography
Research Area: CHEMISTRY
Mission Scenario: Chemical processes, aerosol and clouds
It is now well recognized that clouds act as a chemical factory in the
atmosphere and play a muti-faceted role not only in the dynamic
pumping and scavenging of species but also play a key role in
heterogeneous chemistry linking many aerosol and gas phase species.
Understanding the impact of both local and global cloud systems on
atmospheric chemistry will necessarily involve well instrumented
aircraft capable of measuring gases, aerosol, cloud and atmospheric
properties over large spatial scales. The role of the InterTropical
Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in modifying atmospheric chemistry on the
scale of the Hadley circulation is of interest and would require such
measurements at all altitudes in the troposphere and over extended
remote regions. Such a program would require a suite of measurements.
These would include a platform equipped with fast response
meteorological sensors suitable for turbulence analysis, wing probes
for ambient particle/cloudroplet analysis, inlets for fast mass
spectrometers and instrumentation for selected gas phase species.
Aerosol inlets including a CVI and various aerosol inboard
instrumentation and samplers would also be needed.. Other
instrumentation would include a lidar, radiometric instrumentation,
SST, dropsondes, actinic flux etc.
An experiment mission might consist of flights both north and South of
the ITCZ in tropical regions expected to be "pristine" and in regions
subject to anthropogenic influence. A 10 hour flight might include a
3hr ferry to the study site and similar time to return. The flight
would include vertical profiles and stacked low altitude legs of about
20+ minutes each could be carried out to characterize low level inflow
and outflow characteristics. These might be at 300, 1000, 2000, 4000,
8000 ft and require up to 2 hours to complete without aircraft
overheating. These would be followed by several higher altitude legs
up to 50,000ft. to characterize various ITCZ outflow regions. Some
in-cloud data would also be taken. Data from the vertical profiles
could then be coupled to current meteorological information uploaded
to the aircraft to select altitudes and directions to fly that would
maximize opportunities to follow outflow regions spreading away from
the ITCZ. Other flights would include efforts focussed on inflow,
outflow and in-cloud characterization of individual clouds and
cooperative missions with ship platforms.
Back to list of mission scenarios