Field Deployments

Funded Field Deployments

PLOWS 2010: Profiling of Winter Storms Study
The PLOWS program is a study of winter cyclones in Illinois and nearby states, particularly examining fronts and other structures (e.g. precipitation bands) around the storms.

• Dates: November 2009 - February 2010
• Where: Illinois
• Facility: C-130

ISPA 2010: Inhibition of Snowfall by Pollution Aerosols
ISPA studies the link between pollution aerosols and snowfall rates in the Mount Werner area near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. EOL provided the ISS-MAPR lower atmospheric observing facility, in addition to the University of Wyoming King Air to measure higher atmospheric horizontal profiles.

• Dates: January 14 - February 28, 2010
• Where: Steamboat Springs, CO
• Facility: UWKA, ISS, MAPR

HIPPO III 2010 : HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations
The HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) project is investigating the Carbon Cycle and greenhouse gases throughout various altitudes of the western hemisphere through the annual cycle. The main goal of this program is to determine the global distribution of carbon dioxide and other trace atmospheric gases by sampling at various altitudes and latitudes in the Pacific Basin.

• Dates: March 19 - April 22, 2010
• Where: Pole to Pole
• Facility: G-V

VORTEX 2010: Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment
VORTEX 2010 will investigate tornadogenesis, tornado structure and the relationships between tornadoes, their parent thunderstorms and the larger-scale environment by using an armada of ground-based, mobile measurement systems including the DOW's and EOL's MGAUS.

• Dates: April 2 - June 30, 2010
• Where: Mid-Western US High Plains
• Facility: GAUS

BEACHON 2010: Bio-hydro-atmosphere Interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H2O, Organics and Nitrogens
The BEACHON project conducts experimental and numerical research studies to enhance understanding of the roles of biogenic aerosols, nitrogen trace gases and oxidants in linking and regulating the carbon and water cycles.

• Dates: June 2010
• Where: Manitou Forest Observatory, CO
• Facility: MGAUS

PREDICT 2010: Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems of the Tropics
A multitude of tropical disturbances emerge from the West African coast every year near the Cape Verde islands, but only a few of these develop into tropical depressions, storms, or hurricanes. The PRE-Depression Investigation of Cloud-systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) field experiment will explore multi-scale interactions in tropical wave-like disturbances that promote or hinder the development of a tropical depression vortex.

• Dates: August - September 2010
• Where: Caribbean
• Facility: G-V, Dropsondes

GRIP 2010: Genesis and Rapid Intensification Process
The Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment is a NASA Earth science field experiment in 2010 that will be conducted to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. NASA plans to use the DC-8 aircraft and the Global Hawk Unmanned Airborne System (UAS) configured with a suite of in-situ and remote sensing instruments that will be used to observe and characterize the lifecycle of hurricanes.

• Dates: August - September 2010
• Where: Southern California, Southern Florida
  
• Facility: DC-8, Global Hawk, Dropsondes

ITOP 2010: Interactions of Typhoons and Oceans Project
This project will study the interaction between typhoons and the underlying ocean with specific regard to the 4-dimensional response of the ocean underneath and behind the storm. It is a follow-on to the successful T-PARC TCS-08 Project but will emphasize the ocean responses to typhoon growth and movement in the western Pacific Ocean.

• Dates: August - September 2010
• Where: Guam
• Facility: US Air Force aircraft, with support from FPS and CDS support

WAMO 2010: Western Airborne Mercury Observations
This project will develop, evaluate, and utilize an airborne instrument to measure two of the most important chemical forms of mercury: gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) and reactive gaseous mercury (RGM).

• Dates: October 2010
• Where: Broomfield, CO
• Facility: C-130

PCAPS 2010: Persistent Cold-Air Pool Study
The research objectives of PCAPS are to determine processes responsible for formation, maintenance and destruction of multi-day wintertime temperature inversions or cold-air pools, evaluate their influence on pollutant transport and mixing, and determine how models can be improved to make more accurate forecasting of persistent cold-air pool events.

• Dates: December 2010 - February 2011
• Where: Salt Lake Basin, Western US
• Facility: ISS, ISFS

Proposed Field Deployments

ADELE II & III: Airborne Detection for Energetic Lightning Emissions
The program is designed to observe high-energy radiation associated with lightning by using the Airborne Detector for Energetic Lightning Emissions (ADELE) instrument. The ADELE study will help to determine the role of high-energy processes in lightning initiation and explain the origin of the Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs).

• Dates: July - August 2011 (II) & July - August 2012 (III)
• Where: Broomfield, CO and Melbourne, FL
• Facility: G-V

CCPT: Development of a Climate Process Team for the Caribbean Region
The purpose of CCPT is to collect boundary layer meteorology and standard flux data in support of mesoscale model validation exercise as part of the Inter-American Seas Project of CLIVAR.

• Dates: July 2011, July 2012, & July 2013
• Where: Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Colombia
• Facility: Wyoming King Air

DYNAMO 2011: Dynamics of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)
DYNAMO is a US research program motivated by two outstanding problems:

• Current prediction skill for the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is very limited; particularly, it is the lowest for the MJO initiation phase over the Indian Ocean.
• The inability of state-of-the-art global models to produce the MJO degrades their seasonal to interannual prediction and lessens our confidence in their ability to project future climate.

The overarching goal of DYNAMO is to expedite our understanding of processes key to MJO initiation over the Indian Ocean and our efforts to improve simulation and prediction of the MJO. DYNAMO consists of four integrated components: a field campaign, data analysis, modeling, and forecasting.

• Dates: September - December 2011
• Where: Indian Ocean
• Facility: S-POL

SAANGRIA 2012: Southern-Andes - Antarctic Gravity Wave Initiative
The objective of the SAANGRIA project is to study the dynamics of internal gravity waves (GW) in the Southern Andes-Antarctic Peninsula region from the surface of the earth to the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT). The project examines how tropospheric winds and storms modulate the generation of GWs, how GWs propagate across the tropopause into the stratosphere, and how tidal winds influence GW propagation and breakdown in the middle atmosphere.

• Dates: July - August 2012
• Where: Southern Andes, South America
• Facility: G-V

HYMEX 2013: HYdrological cycle in the Mediterranean EXperiment
Although much has been learned about orographic precipitation in recent years, the ability to predict its location and intensity with the desired accuracy remains elusive. A major obstacle in achieving such ability is that the location and amount of precipitation depend on the accurate prediction of multi-scale motions and microphysical transformations that have not been amenable to simultaneous measurement. The upcoming field campaign of the international program HYMEX (Hydrological cycle in the Mediterranean eXperiment) in Fall 2012 will attempt to obtain such information on the most extensive-to-date range of processes contributing to heavy precipitation events (HPEs) over the orography of the northwestern Mediterranean Sea Basin.

• Dates: September 12 - November 12, 2013
• Where: Mediterranean Ocean
• Facility: ISS, S-POL