1. Understanding the Earth & Sun System

Priority 1: Exploring Atmospheric, Earth System, and Solar Processes, Variability and Change

Landmark Paper on the "Missing" Carbon Sink

Among the 2007 highlights in this area is a landmark paper by Britt Stephens et al. published in Science, which puts a new perspective on the “missing” carbon sink. This paper greatly diminishes the apparent discrepancy between overall emissions and the rate of increase of atmospheric CO2. This research indicates that uptake in tropical forests is actually much larger than previously thought, while CO2 uptake in northern latitudes is lower than previously thought.

START 08

The Stratosphere-Troposphere Analyses of Regional Transport (START) experiment, run in FY06, looks at transport processes that impact the chemical-microphysical distribution of the extratropical upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS) region. START08 planning launched this year. With a collaborative team of university and NCAR scientists in place, an experiment design and plan proposal were submitted to the Observing Facility Assessment Panel (OFAP) in early 2007, which received NSF approval in August 2007.

Priority 2: Investigating the Interactions of the Atmosphere, the Broader Earth System and Human Society

Developing a fuller understanding of the complex interactions among the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, land masses, ice masses, and biosphere; the interconnection of human activities with the Earth’s physical, chemical, and biological processes is a major focus of our national center.  EOL is tasked mainly with the mission to develop innovative instrumentation and data acquisition technology and lead scientific campaigns that make such understanding possible.  Even so, EOL scientists often find themselves in the thick of data analysis that contribute directly to the goal of improving our understanding of the atmosphere and earth system, specifically by investigating the interactions of the atmosphere and the broader earth system.

Terrain-influenced Monsoon Rainfall Experiment (TiMREX) 

EOL Technician Jeff Bobka maps out a potential S-POL Radar site for the TiMREX Field Program during a site survey visit to Taiwan. (Wen-Chau Lee)

TiMREX is a proposed joint U.S.-Taiwan multi-agency field program that will be conducted from 15 May to 30 June 2008 in the northern South China Sea, western coastal plain and mountain slope regions of southern Taiwan. The goal of TiMREX is to improve understanding of the physical process associated with the terrain-influenced heavy precipitation systems and the monsoonal environment in which they are embedded through intensive observations, data assimilation and numerical modeling studies.

Biogeochemistry Initiative

EOL collaborated with investigators at CU, CSU, and in CGD, MMM, and TIIMES to conduct the ACME ’07 campaign using the University of Wyoming King Air. This was the second Airborne Carbon in the Mountains Campaign, focusing in Colorado and Wyoming, with flights taking place from early spring through fall 2007. EOL also collaborated with TIIMES and investigators from Harvard, NOAA, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography to plan and conduct the HIPPO campaign on the NCAR G-V. This campaign investigating the global carbon cycle will conduct profiling flights over North America in 2008, and during 5 global loops from 2009-2011. EOL and TIIMES staff continued to operate the Regional Atmospheric Continuous CO2 Network in the Rocky Mountains (Rocky RACCOON) network of CO2 analyzers and collaborate with University of Utah and University of Wisconsin to investigate regional carbon cycling the Rocky Mountains.

The Role of Aerosols in Climate and Weather

Outside the hangar in Anchorage Alaska, with the Chugach mountain range at its back, the NSF/NCAR G-V receives last minute preparations before its flight to Japan to follow a dust plume during the PACific Dust EXperiment (PACDEX). (Photo by Jeff Stith)

In April and May of 2007, EOL ventured into NCAR’s strategic priority to study the role of aerosols in climate and weather by deploying the NSF/NCAR G-V in support of the PACific Dust EXperiment (PACDEX) to study the Eurasian-Pacific-North American dust plume. The transport of dust and anthropogenic aerosols (e.g., black carbon, organics and sulfates, and air pollution from Eurasia, across the Pacific Ocean, into North America) is one of the most widespread and major pollution events on the planet.
This plume passes through the Pacific Ocean extratropical cloud systems, which are important climate regulators through their large radiative cooling effect. The effect of this mixed dust-pollution plume on the Pacific cloud systems and the associated radiative forcing is an outstanding problem for understanding climate change and has not been explored. The primary reason has been the lack of an airborne platform that can sample the evolution of this plume in situ all the way across the Pacific Ocean.

The experiment represents the first true deployment of the G-V as originally envisioned. The aircraft is equipped with the first HAIS instrument packages and will not plan on recovering at Jeffco during its cross-Pacific mission. Analysis of data collected during the experiment will be a high priority for EOL scientists during FY08 and 09.

Priority 3: Improving the Prediction of Weather, Climate and other Atmospheric Phenomena

Over the last several decades, the skill of numerical weather prediction is generally considered to have increased at an average rate of about one day per decade. Thus, the skill of today’s four-day forecast is equivalent to the skill of a three-day forecast of a decade earlier. The rate of improvement is even slower for the forecast variables needed most by society, such as the prediction of heavy rainfall. This relatively slow, linear rate of improvement is not sufficient to keep place with the demand for accurate weather information in the world today, where an exponentially growing world population places an ever-increasing number of people in areas at risk for weather disasters.

THORPEX Pacific Asian Regional Campaign

Data is being analyzed from the T-AMMA project to investigate and improve the performance of the driftsonde, shown above, as a research tool. (Terry Hock)

In FY07, EOL began to analyze data gathered during T-AMMA (FY 2006) to investigate and improve the performance of the driftsonde as a research tool and to investigate hurricane genesis and the genesis environment. Areas of likely activity include investigating why such a pronounced large-scale wave structure was found at the 20-km height of the balloon-gondola, but not in the operational analysis.

The driftsonde will be undergoing major developments in preparation for the proposed T-PARC campaign in FY08. In addition, ELDORA has also been requested by the PIs to collect data in the genesis region.