5. Providing World-Class Observational Facilities and Services

Priority 1: Enabling Innovative Field Experiments and Measurement Campaigns

The accuracy, robustness, and performance of weather, climate, and chemistry models depend on sound theory and accurate measurements. EOL’s leadership in the area of field program planning and implementation is considered the crown jewel of its achievements.  EOL maintains a large suite of state-of-the-art NSF-funded Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities (LAOF), without which collection and analysis of data and subsequently, understanding of atmospheric and earth processes would be impossible.

Maintaining a large degree of flexibility and responsiveness, EOL serves as the coordination point for scientific field campaigns, offering services ranging from advice and consultation during the initial stages of the planning process to the development of field design and project implementation plans, the provision of tailored and specialized logistics support, the fielding, operation and maintenance of scientific instrumentation in the field, real-time data communication development and support, organizational and operational management to achieve the scientific objectives as well as the coordination of educational activities related to field projects.

National Radar Facility

A key objective in creating the National Radar Facility is to create a national test bed that other institutes and agencies can use for research and education.

EOL is developing a strategic partnership with Colorado State University to create a national radar facility. Both institutions support 10-cm, multiparameter Doppler radars that will be jointly operated in this new partnership. A key objective is to create a national test bed that other institutes and agencies can use for research and education. The radars will be in continuous operation, and university students will be encouraged to propose small (less than 20-hour) projects for collecting thesis-related research data. In FY08, the two institutes will formalize plans.

Virtual Operations Center (VOC)

EOL has revised and updated the VOC proposal based on feedback from reviewers and a Town Hall Meeting which occurred at the annual AMS meeting in January 2007.  EOL anticipates a funding decision by the NSF in early FY08.  If successful in procuring funding, staff will begin to build prototypes for the VOC.

NSF/NCAR Facilities Assessment

In the early part of FY 2007, the NSF/NCAR Facilities Assessment team developed an interactive database that will be populated with descriptions of systems, platforms, networks, and emerging technologies that are provided by community experts.  The database will be supported on a web site and become a public resource with routine updating, and is intended to provide descriptive information on atmospheric science facilities and instrumentation in a consistent, easy-to-read format as a resource for the broad atmospheric science and related communities.

The Assessment has begun soliciting input from the community through submitting information on instruments and facilities or submitting revisions to resources already included. The 7 subcommittees met separately in May to review the information submitted so far, and there was a larger community workshop in late September, immediately following the planned NSF Facilities’ Users' Workshop, to gain community input on gaps in the database and capabilities.  EOL will continue to support the maintenance of the web site in FY08 and 09 and thereafter.

Observing Facilities Assessment Panel (OFAP)

Twice a year, EOL hosts the Observing Facilities Assessment Panel (OFAP), an NCAR-driven community process that provides technical and operational assessment of requests associated with the use of NSF’s Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities in the field.

Twice a year, EOL hosts the Observing Facilities Assessment Panel (OFAP) and coordinates among panel members, PIs, facility providers, EOL staff and NSF to assess the feasibility and cost of NSF-funded field projects. The OFAP is an NCAR-driven community process that provides technical and operational assessment of requests associated with the use of NSF’s Lower Atmospheric Observing Facilities (LAOF) in the field. The panel, which is composed of a diverse pool of scientists with broad experience in observational studies of earth system sciences, meets at NCAR to provide valuable feedback and evaluation to facility managers and the user community concerning experiment design, data management issues and the appropriate and efficient use of NSF resources as related to a specific field campaign. The comments and technical evaluation presented by the OFAP, together with feasibility analyses and cost estimates provided by Facility Managers, are considered before a final decision is made by NSF whether to approve a project.

Field Deployments

Meteor Crater Experiment (METCRAX)

In October 2006 EOL provided one ISS and seven ISFS in support of the METCRAX experiment, which investigated the meso- and micro-scale structure and evolution of the stable boundary layer within, above and in the vicinity of the Arizona Meteor Crater. The crater was chosen as it represents an ideal, simple-shaped, and small closed basin cut into a nearly homogeneous plane.

CLIvar MOde Water Dynamics Experiment (CLIMODE)

EOL scientist Bill Brown does a last minute check of atmospheric conditions before he launches a sounding balloon off the R/V Knorr during CLIMODE, an experiment which studied the loss of heat from the North Atlantic sea into the atmosphere.

EOL supported this University of Connecticut experiment on heat loss from the ocean into the atmosphere by providing one ISS on the R/V Knorr to study the dynamics of subtropical mode water of the North Atlantic. The experiment ran from February to March in 2007. The objective of this experiment was to develop better climate models by improving the understanding of ocean physics. Data gathered from the experiment will be checked for quality control by EOL and offered to the research community as a data product in FY 2007.

Inhibition of Snowfall by Pollution Aerosols (ISPA 2006)

ISPA studies the link between pollution aerosols and snowfall rates in the Mount Werner area near Steamboat Springs, Colorado. EOL provided the ISS-MAPR facility in early 2007 to obtain temperature and humidity profiles with altitude, cloud top height and temperature, depths of the snow layer, crystal fall speed and riming extent. Data gathered from the experiment will be checked for quality control and offered to the research community as a data product in FY 2007.

Canopy Horizontal Array Turbulence Study (CHATS)

EOL deployed its Integrated Surface Flux System (ISFS) in a walnut grove in Dixon, California for the CHATS experiment to study turbulent transport within plant canopies. (Steve Oncley)

Turbulent transport within plant canopies is still not well understood and is, hence, poorly represented in large-scale climate models. Canopy turbulence is a complex but important aspect of biogeoscience, as it plays an essential role in transporting substances between their source location and the overlying atmosphere.  EOL supported this NCAR-led experiment by deploying an ISSF and the REAL lidar in a walnut grove in Dixon, California in March and April 2007. Data gathered from the experiment will be checked for quality control and offered to the research community as a data product in FY 2007.

Convective and Orographically induced Precipitation Study (COPS)

SOARS Student Theresa Aguilar stands by the Doppler on Wheels II as she watches a gust front roll in during the Convective and Orographically induced Precipitation Study (COPS) near the Black Forest in Germany, Summer, 2007.

EOL provided scientific and technical support in the COPS campaign to study convective processes in Germany’s Black Forest during the summer of 2007. COPS’ scientific goal is to improve the skill of quantitative forecasts of orographically-induced convective precipitation by obtaining a better understanding of the dynamical and microphysical processes responsible for deficiencies in QPF in moderate-mountain regions. COPS will provide a data set for identifying the reasons for deficiencies in QPF and for incorporating improved representations of sub-grid scale processes in mesoscale models.

PACific Dust EXperiment (PACDEX)

See section on the Role of Aerosol in Climate and Weather.

Pacific Atmospheric Sulfur Experiment (PASE)

In August and September of 2007, EOL provided the C-130 research aircraft to PASE, which is a comprehensive study of sulfur chemistry in a pristine marine trade wind system.  The base of operations for this experiment was on Christmas Island, Kiribati, a remote area that offers a highly stable trade wind inversion with little chance of precipitation, high solar intensity and horizontal winds constant in direction and speed over several days.

The NSF/NCAR C-130 flies by a beach on Christmas Island during the PASE project in August, 2007.

Future Field Deployments

Ice In Clouds Experiment (ICE-L)

EOL will provide the NSF/NCAR C-130 in November 2007. The scientific goal of the project, based at Jeffco Airport, is to show that under given conditions, direct ice nucleation measurements, or other specific measurable characteristics of aerosols, can be used to predict the number of ice particles formation by nucleation mechanisms in selected clouds. The investigators seek improved quantitative understanding of the roles of thermodynamic pathway, location within the cloud, and temporal dependency.

HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO)

The Collaborative Research: HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observations (HIPPO) of Carbon Cycle and Greenhouse Gases Study will measure cross sections of atmospheric concentrations approximately pole-to-pole, from the surface to the tropopause, 4-6 times during different seasons over a 2.5 to 3-year period beginning in 2008. The scientific questions motivating HIPPO focus on understanding the global sources and sinks for CO₂, CH₄, and other carbon cycle gases, and more broadly determining large-scale rates of tracer transport in the atmosphere. This experiment would not be feasible without the G-V and will establish a new paradigm for facility allocation.  It is first time that a multi-year allocation of an observational platform has been approved by NSF.   Such allocations may become more common with the G-V.

THORPEX Pacific Asian Regional Campaign (T-PARC)

EOL will be providing Driftsonde support for the proposed T-PARC experiment in September of 2008.  T-PARC is a multi-national field campaign that addresses the shorter-range dynamics and forecast skill of one region (Eastern Asian and the western North Pacific) and its downstream impact on the medium-range dynamics and forecast skill of another region (in particular, the eastern North Pacific and North America). The driftsonde and ELDORA are two primary platforms that have been requested for this experiment.

Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS)

The proposed ARCTAS experiment will take place as two 1-month aircraft deployments, in March-April and June-July 2008. It will involve the NASA DC-8 as its primary platform, and EOL’s new Difference Frequency Generation (DFG) spectrometer will acquire ambient measurements of formaldehyde, an important trace gas involved in ozone and hydrogen radical production. The spring deployment will target arctic haze, anthropogenic pollution in general, stratosphere-troposphere exchange, and sunrise photochemistry. The summer deployment will target boreal forest fires, stratosphere-troposphere exchange, and summertime photochemistry. ARCTAS is part of the international IPY/POLARCAT arctic field program for atmospheric composition.

Priority 2: New instrumentation

Advances in research on weather, climate, water cycle, chemistry and dynamics of the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere, and biogeosciences all require capabilities beyond our current suite of airborne and ground-based instruments. EOL is tasked with developing this new generation of robust, inexpensive, easily deployable, and versatile instrument systems to address these needs.  Our extensive pool of talented scientific and engineering staff continually conceptualize, develop and test new instrumentation for studying the links between atmospheric composition and the biogeosciences, with systems for quantifying the surface-atmosphere exchange of gases and aerosols on whole-plant, whole-canopy, and regional scales using mobile laboratories and deployments of our fleet of research aircraft.   

EOL has been involved in a variety of efforts to support this strategic priority in FY 2007.  CAPRIS, a new suite of radar and lidars that allow for unprecedented combination of coincident observations of precipitation, winds, cloud microphysics, water vapor, ozone and aerosol – all on one platform – is going through the NSF review process. The sophisticated gondola EOL developed in 2006 designed to fly approximately 25 miles into the atmosphere by a giant balloon to capture images of the Sun's outer surface at a higher resolution than ever before took its maiden voyage last month in Oklahoma. 

Community Airborne Platform Remote-Sensing Interdisciplinary Suite (CAPRIS)

The CAPRIS White Paper went through an extensive internal and external community review, and was resubmitted to NSF for review in April 2007. The latest changes include discussion of the science engineering and resources requirements, updates to the budgets based on the Lidar RFP process and partnership with MIT/Lincoln Labs on the development of the CM phased array antennas.

Sunrise Gondola

A team of scientists and engineers in EOL and HAO built this 23-foot gondola (seen here with solar panels attached) as part of the Sunrise project, an international program to measure magnetic fields, dynamics, and thermal properties of the solar atmosphere. Carried approximately 25 miles (40 kilometers) into the atmosphere by a giant balloon, the gondola will contain a 1-meter diameter solar telescope that can capture high-resolution images of the Sun's outer surface.

EOL is working in conjunction with ESSL's High Altitude Observatory (HAO) to create the gondola for a lightweight, balloon-borne one-meter solar telescope that will circle Antarctica for about two weeks at an altitude of approximately 25 miles. Its advanced instrumentation will provide high-resolution images of the Sun's outer surface, or photosphere, enabling scientists to get unprecedented views of small-scale magnetic fields that drive solar variability and profoundly affect Earth's atmosphere.

To get a balloon up that high in the atmosphere with such sophisticated and sensitive instrumentation is no small feat. The entire system will weigh approximately 5000 pounds, which will require a 40 million cubic foot polyethylene balloon - in other words, the giganitc balloon will be nearly as big as a football field. Not only that, the gondola must keep the telescope aimed at a specific - and relatively tiny - area of the Sun. The telescope's angle must remain within 15 arc seconds, or 1/240th of a degree while constantly twisting on a soaring balloon.

In FY 2007, completed the construction phase as well as the dynamic control system for the instrument and conduct a test flight in October of 2007. The balloon was launched by the National Scientific Balloon Facility from Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The short, 12-hour flight allowed the engineers an opportunity to test and fine tune the pointing control system. It is possible that the small optical telescope that will be installed for testing will produce some very useful UV flux measurements as well.

Other Developments

Wind Lidar

The proposal to develop a Wind Lidar was approved in FY 2007, and is exploring the ability of a lidar wind profiler to measure winds and possibly turbulence, with better time resolution, altitude resolution while reducing the effects of “clutter” (such as signals from the ground, birds, etc.) and interference from radio waves than is possible from current radar wind profilers and SODAR systems.

CAMS Instrument for the G-V

EOL began development of the Compact Atmospheric Multi-species Spectrometer for the G-V (CAMS) in FY 2007. This new instrument will rely on the same state-of-the-art advancements employing DFG technology as our other airborne spectrometers, but with major upgrades and innovations for operation on the G-V platform. It is one of many important trace gas chemistry instruments being developed for the NSF/NCAR G-V for the 2010 DC-3 project (Deep Clouds, Convection & Chemistry) as well as other airborne studies.

NO/NOy for the G-V

In FY 07 EOL funded the completion of this instrument, which will be used in many chemistry campaigns, and in 2010 will be an integral part in the proposed DC-3 experiment.  In FY 2007 EOL and ACD established a Memorandum of Understanding and a working partnership regarding EOL support of ACD-built instruments, PI expectations in supporting non-ACD field deployments, and ownership of the acquired data.  This represents an important partnership with ACD to support airborne instrumentation.

Development of a plan for long-wave radiation for the G-V

In our efforts to continually produce state of the art observing technology, EOL staff is leading a development effort for an instrument to measure long-wave radiation emitted by the earth’s surface from the G-V platform. Measurements of terrestrial emissions are an essential element in understanding the earth’s radiative budget. In FY 2007 EOL will conduct a workshop to survey community needs for such instrumentation and devise a plan to improve upon what currently exists.  Ultimately, this will lead to the development of new G-V instrument with this important capability.

SATCOM software products for the G-V

In F07 EOL is gathering input from the NCAR/NSF user community about what products they want and what is currently available in regards to Satcom software products. In FY08 we will begin efforts to develop or purchase what we need to provide the research community.

High Precision carbon dioxide isotopic ratio instrument

This long-standing development project that began in FY 2002 with NSF Biocomplexity Special Funds progressed rapidly in FY 2007.  This instrument provides new in-situ information about carbon sinks in the atmosphere.   It will augment more traditional measurements of this ratio from high precision isotopic ratio mass spectrometry, leading to an enhanced understanding of the carbon cycle.  Throughout FY2007 extensive laboratory testing was conducted and field-testing is anticipated in FY 2008.

Development of a high efficiency waveguide DFG instrument

With partial support from the NCAR Director’s Opportunity Fund in 2006, EOL scientists have been working with Japanese scientists and engineers from the NTT Photonics Laboratory, NTT Corporation in developing and assessing of new high performance optical frequency conversion technology based upon wave-guide DFG devices. This group published a paper on the first phase of this instrument development and assessment in FY 2007 and is currently working on an improved version. Research Engineers and Scientists in EOL anticipate significantly improved performance, both in terms of higher output powers and conversion efficiencies, from the new DFG device. If successful, this will open up many new detection methods for instruments on the G-V.

Water Reference Sounding System

This collaboration between NSF/EOL and South West Sciences Incorporated is aimed at exploring the feasibility of balloon-borne tunable diode laser (TDL) technology for in-situ water vapor measurements with verifiable accuracy. Such measurements are badly needed by the climate community. This activity has been postponed until the start of FY 2008.

Priority 3: Installing Initial Instrument Suite and Beginning Operations of the NSF/NCAR G-V Aircraft

2007 marked the year that the NSF/NCAR G-V was deployed in a project that truly demonstrated its unique capabilities as a long-range research aircraft.  The G-V also entered a major upgrade phase in FY07 that will continue into FY09. HAIS instruments began arriving this year and will continue to be delivered until FY2009.

PACific Dust Experiment (PACDEX)

See section describing the Role of Aerosols in Climate and Weather.

G-V Instrumentation

HAIS Instrumentation

This external wing store system, fabricated by EOL’s Design and Fabrication Services, houses cloud physics instruments, video cameras, laser air motion sensors, and more under the wing of the NSF/NCAR G-V. (Carlye Calvin)

The HIAPER Airborne Instrumentation Solicitation (or HAIS) instruments have started to arrive for installation and testing on the NSF/NCAR G-V. The first of these instruments (SID-2H, HARP, and VCSEL) are operating in PACDEX and making important contributions to that project. Test periods for others are scheduled in July 2007 and February 2008, with probably an additional test period needed in either late 2008 or early 2009. In addition to the instruments delivered for PACDEX, the AWAS, Fast Ozone, MTP, Ozone Photometer will be delivered in FY2007, the QCLS, CIMS, HSRL, 3V-CPI, AND GPS will be delivered in 2008 and the TOGA, ToF-AMS is scheduled to be delivered in FY2009.

We are working with Gulfstream to develop 6 pylons similar to the ones installed for PACDEX plan to installation of those in January 2008.  We also plan to add the large pods in 2008, but funds are unsecured.

Initial reports from PACDEX indicate that the plane is staying cooler than expected, so the cooling system upgrade will be postponed until FY09.  Development of the optical ports is intended to be complete in FY08, and EOL will conduct two test periods for the instrumentation and infrastructure upgrades in July 2007 and in February 2008.

HIAPER Cloud Radar

The HIAPER cloud radar (HCR) is an airborne millimeter-wavelength radar that will serve the atmospheric science community by providing remote sensing capabilities to the NSF/NCAR G-V aircraft. During FY07, EOL completed the detailed design of the receiver, begin the detailed design of the data system and procure a transmitter. We anticipate completion of the remaining electronic design, mechanical design, fabrication and subsystem testing in FY08. System integration will start in FY08 and culminate in FY09, with flight testing to be completed in April 2009. 

Laser Air Motion Sensor (LAMS) for the G-V

EOL scientists and engineers have been developing a new high-accuracy state-of-the art wind velocity instrument for the G-V over the past year. This instrument utilizes measurements of the Doppler shifts in backscattered near-IR laser radiation caused by the 3-D wind field. It will improve upon the accuracy of airborne wind velocity measurements over current technology based upon differential gust probes. The accuracy for the latter, which is severely compromised by aircraft flow perturbations, becomes a particular problem on the G-V.  The new instrument solves this problem by remotely detecting the wind fields well in front of the airplane, resulting in anticipated flow velocity accuracies around 0.1 m/sec. In FY 2007 EOL anticipates completion of the single channel demo phase, including airborne testing, of this new instrument on the G-V.  Upon completion of the first phase, EOL anticipates embarking on the full development of a three-channel system for measurements of all three-wind velocity components.