LOTOS 2021

LOwer Troposphere Observing System

PROJECT DATES
06/01/2021 - 09/30/2021
Project Location
NCAR Marshall Field Site, Boulder, CO
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Objective

LOTOS (Lower Troposphere Observing System) 2021 is the first NCAR/EOL field experiment to test the proposed sensor network.  Data collected from surface and towered measurements, radar wind profilers, wind lidars, and MicroPulse DIAL will be combined to develop and test algorithms that LOTOS will use to derive data products within the boundary layer.  A proposed LOTOS component is the AERI (Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer) instrument that the University of Oklahoma operates as part of their CLAMPS (Collaborative Lower Atmospheric Mobile Profiling System) platform. In addition, the University of Colorado will use their UAS to execute fly-by’s over the multi-level flux tower for an intercomparison study.

Preliminary Quick Look Plots

Development Activities

  • Virtual towers will be developed with a combined CLAMPS and ISS wind lidar measurement systems.
  • ISS will test the addition of RASS (Radio Acoustic Sounding System) capability to the 449 MHz Modular Wind Profiler.
  • New display tools for the ISS 449 profiler and ISFS platform will be evaluated.
  • ISFS will test a new method of mounting flux sensors on the new telescoping towers.
  • On-going/further development and testing of MPD measurement capabilities. MPD#3 is operational and providing water vapor profiles at Marshall.
  • Data from the MPD and ISS wind lidars can be viewed at http://catalog.eol.ucar.edu/operations/lidar

NCAR/EOL Instrument/Platform

  • ISFS (Integrated Surface Flux System)
  • ISS (Integrated Sounding System)
  • MPD (MicroPulse DIAL)

Collaborating Institutes

  • University of Oklahoma

    • Collaborating Scientist: Petra Klein - pkklein@ou.edu
  • University of Colorado/CIRES

    • Collaborating Scientist: Gijs de Boer - gijs.deboer@colorado.edu 
  • BlackSwift Technologies/CEO: Jack Elston 

List of Instruments

Instrument/Platform

Manufacturer
MicroPulse DIAL NCAR/EOL
915 MHz wind profiler (ISS) Vaisala/Radian LAP3000
449 MHz wind profiler (ISS) NCAR/EOL Modular Wind Profiler
Scanning Doppler Wind lidar (ISS) Vaisala Leosphere WindCube 200S
RASS (ISS) NCAR EOL
Radiosondes (ISS) Vaisala RS92
Surface Met. Products (ISS) Vaisala WXT, NCAR Hygrothermometer
3D sonic anemometer (ISFS) Campbell Scientific CSAT3A
H2O/CO2 infrared gas analyzer (ISFS) Campbell Scientific EC150
Soil moisture and heat fluxes (ISFS) NCAR/EOL
Integrated Net Radiometer (ISFS) Hukseflux NR01
Nanobarometer (ISFS) Paroscientific 6000
CLAMPS (OU) NSSL web page is https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/tools/clamps/
UAV / UAS University of Colorado/BlackSwift Tech.