Laboratory for Atmospheres 2010 Technical Highlights
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NASA/TM—2011–215877 Laboratory for Atmospheres 2010 Technical Highlights July 2011 Cover Photo Captions: Top Left: Scott Janz with the ACAM Instrument prior to the GloPac mission. ACAM is one of 11 science instruments that were carried by the remotely operated high-altitude aircraft during the 2010 NASA GloPac mission. Top Center: Matt McGill and Robert Rivera prepare the CPL Instrument for the GloPac mission. CPL is one of 11 science instruments that were carried by the remotely operated high-altitude aircraft during the 2010 NASA GloPac mission. Top Right: Gerry Heymsfield with Matt McLinden and Lihua Li installing the HIWRAP instrument for the GRIP mission. HIWRAP is one of four science instruments that were carried by the remotely operated high-altitude aircraft during the 2010 NASA GRIP hurricane study. Background: NASA’s AV-6 Global Hawk cruises over the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The AV-6 carried the GloPac mission payload. Bottom Left: Forecaster Leslie Lait (foreground) and Lenny Pfister (background) supported the GloPac mission using products supplied by the GMAO to plan Global Hawk flights. Bottom Center: Time Warner Cable SoCal News’’ Cody Urban and Keli Moore interview NASA atmospheric physicist Paul Newman, co-mission scientist for the GloPac environmental science mission, beside a NASA Global Hawk aircraft at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center. NASA Photo / Tom Tschida Bottom Right: Lihua Li prepares to install the HIWRAP, on the underside of a NASA Global Hawk. NASA/TM—2011–215877 Laboratory for Atmospheres 2010 Technical Highlights National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 July 2011 The NASA STI Program Offi ce … in Profi le Since its founding, NASA has been ded i cated to the • CONFERENCE PUBLICATION. Collected ad vancement of aeronautics and space science. 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Scientifi c and techni- 7115 Standard Drive cal fi ndings by NASA-sponsored con trac tors and Hanover, MD 21076 grantees. Available from: NASA Center for AeroSpace Information National Technical Information Service 7115 Standard Drive 5285 Port Royal Road Hanover, MD 21076-1320 Springfield, VA 22161 Price Code: A17 National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center Greenbelt, Maryland 20771 Dear Reader: Welcome to the Laboratory for Atmospheres’ 2010 Technical Highlights report. I thank you for your inter- est. We publish this report each year to describe our research and to summarize our accomplishments. This document is intended for a broad audience. Our readers include colleagues within NASA, scientists outside the Agency, science graduate students, and members of the general public. Inside are descriptions of our organization and facilities, our major activities, our science highlights, and our education and outreach accomplishments for calendar year 2010. The Laboratory’s approximately 250 scientists, technologists, and administrative personnel are part of the Earth Sciences Division in the Sciences and Exploration Directorate of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. The Mission of the Laboratory for Atmospheres is to advance knowledge and understanding of the Earth’s atmosphere. Satellite missions, retrieval algorithm development, field campaigns, and related modeling and data analy- ses, as well as long-term dataset development are important components of the Lab’s science activities. These activities are helping us to better understand our home planet’s environment, and are increasing our knowledge of the complex physics and chemistry of the atmosphere. The following are some noteworthy events that took place during 2010: Congratulations to the GSFC Global Hawk Pacific—GloPac team! This was the first NASA science demon- stration of the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft system (UAS) for NASA and NOAA Earth Science research and applications. This first mission was for exploration of trace gases, aerosols and dynamics of remote upper troposphere and lower stratosphere regions. Images and captions produced by the Earth Observatory Group (Sigma Space) of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been featured heavily in the public media. Equally impressive was the support provided by Laboratory scientists during the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) hurricane field campaign. The project led to the first-ever flights of the Global Hawk over hurricanes and demonstrated the utility of the Global Hawk for hurricane studies for the future Goddard-led Venture Class mission called the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3). Drs. Scott Braun and Gerald Heymsfield were Mission Scientists and flew the new High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler on the Global Hawk. GRIP was highly successful, obtaining measurements of the genesis of Hurricane Karl and Tropical Storm Mathew and the rapid intensification of hurricanes Earl and Karl, among other flights. Laboratory scientists provided science and logistic support to the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Light Precipitation Validation Experiment (LPVEx) in the Gulf of Finland to detect light rainfall and rainfall intensity in high latitudes affected by shallow freezing levels. Laboratory scientists played a critical role in a pilot interdisciplinary sciences project named the 7 South East Asian Studies (or 7-SEAS). The primary goal of the project is to understand the impact of aerosol particles on weather and climate in Southeast Asia based on research topics in 7 focus areas. The project will continue until 2012 with a goal to develop a wide-ranging Southeast Asian scientific data network. In July the ALVICE Raman lidar system was fully accepted by the Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) as a mobile intercomparison instrument for water vapor profiling. The first deployment will be in Canada in July 2011. As in previous years, Laboratory scientists received many top professional honors and appointments. Notable among these was the election of Paul Newman as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. Jay Herman received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (ESM) and Bryan Duncan was awarded a RHG Science Award. James Gleason was appointed as the Senior Project Scientist in the Program Office for the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Project, and Lazaros Oraiopoulos was appointed as Aqua Deputy Project Scientist following Dr. Platnick’s appointment as the EOS Project Scientist. Alexander Marshak was appointed Deputy Project Scientist for Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR). Dr. W. Lau received an Honorary Professorship Award from the School of Environment and Energy, City University of Hong Kong. The year 2010 was also a time to bid farewell to Rich Stolarski, who retired after 36 years of service. He will continue research under the Emeritus program. I wish to thank Kathy White for her 19 years of high-quality service to the Laboratory; Kathy accepted a civil service position as a contract specialist. Eric Wilcox accepted a position at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada. I am pleased to welcome research scientists Bill Cook and Nickolay Krotkov to the Laboratory. Bill will be performing fundamental research in the development of new instrument concepts and technology and will also serve as Deputy Instrument Scientist for the ICESat II mission.