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Director's MessageATD systems and staff supported a heavy load of research projects in 1999, with all systems in use for at least one project. Our staff traveled extensively to support twelve different field projects within the US, Canada, Japan, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Brazil and the European Alps. Three of these projects, TRMM-LBA, INDOEX and MAP, required lengthy preparations and posed various logistical hurdles due to language difficulties, geographical location, and other cultural complexities. Others, like the Arctic Transitions in the Land-Atmosphere System (ATLAS) program, posed different challenges due to the remoteness and inaccessibility of the deployment site.Several staff served nearly four months in the field. Most ATD staff do not enjoy that much field work. We trust that we have given excellent service to our users in their 1999 projects, but we hope 1999 represents an unusual combination of complex projects because in the long term we can't sustain regular maintenance and an appropriate upgrade and development effort with so many staff in the field for so long. Despite the busy field project schedule, this report describes significant progress on several ATD development efforts, most notably in planning process for a new aircraft. ATD also expects substantial improvement in airborne water vapor measurements from our acquisition and testing of a tunable diode laser water vapor sensor and improvements in our suite of airborne trace gas instruments. ATD staff completed modifications and upgrades to two complex remote sensing systems, moving our Scanning Aerosol Backscatter Lidar (SABL) from the C-130 cabin to a wing pod and bringing the Multichannel Cloud Radiometer (MCR) to a new level of performance and reliability. As part of a re-assessment and long-range plan for software developments, ATD opened discussions with UCAR/UNIDATA about JAVA-based display tools. ATD accelerated its work with the scientific community to develop requirements and specifications for the next-generation NSF research aircraft that ATD hopes to acquire and bring into service within the next five years. The aircraft, called HIAPER (High-Performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research), will enable a wide range of research with its capabilities to reach remote regions, to fly in the the tropopause region and lower stratosphere over much of the globe, and to carry a broad suite of state-of-the-art sensors and instruments. None of ATD's excellent work could have happened without the energy, expertise, and dedication of ATD staff. I thank the staff for their extraordinary efforts this year and join them in re-affirming our intention to play an important and effective role in providing and advancing the observational capabilities of the atmospheric research community.
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