Flinders Centre for Airborne Research Airborne Research Australia - MNRF Tri-Annual Report 2005 – 2006 – 2007 Flinders Centre for Airborne Research FLINDERS UNIVERSITY ADELAIDE z AUSTRALIA NOTE: Both, FCAR and ARA are 100% self-funding research institutes. They do not receive any financial support or recurrent base-funding from their host organisation, the Australian Government or any other sources. The ARA MNRF was established with funding from the Major National Research Facilities (MNRF) Program of the Commonwealth of Australia. This funding was granted to cover capital cost only, no operational funding was included. Over the years, FCAR/ARA (and their predecessor FIAMS – the Flinders Institute for Atmospheric and Marine Sciences) has received substantial financial contributions in the form of grants, donations and bequests from the late Joyce and Don Schultz of Glen Osmond, SA and the South Australian Sir Ross and Sir Keith Smith Fund. FCAR is a research institute hosted within the Faculty of Social Sciences at Flinders University. Further copies of this document can be downloaded from www.airborneresearch.org.au/TriAnnualReport.pdf. Flinders Centre for Airborne Research - Airborne Research Australia PO Box 335 Salisbury South 5106 Ph: +61 8 8182 4000 Fax: +61 8 8285 6710 http://www.AirborneResearch.org.au The Tri-Annual Report for 2005 - 2007 was compiled by the FCAR/ARA Director and Chief Scientist, A/Prof. Jörg M Hacker © 2008 FCAR/ARA Tri-Annual Report 2005-2007 Flinders Centre for Airborne Research - Airborne Research Australia - MNRF Table of Contents 1 Director’s Report _________________________________________________________ 4 2 Projects, Significant Activities, Research Grants and active Collaborations _________ 18 2.1 Summary of projects _______________________________________________________ 18 2.2 Summary of significant activities _____________________________________________ 22 2.3 Summary of grants received from research agencies and similar entities ____________ 23 2.4 Active Collaborations ______________________________________________________ 25 3 Project Descriptions ______________________________________________________ 26 3.1 Detection of irrigation channel seepage by airborne IR-imagery ___________________ 27 3.2 Pipeline Mapping Using Airborne Video_______________________________________ 29 3.3 Airborne remote sensing of soil moisture and sea surface salinity – the PLMR _______ 30 3.4 Airborne full waveform laser scanning for terrain and vegetation mapping__________ 33 3.5 Instrumentation for the ECO-Dimona (G-GEOS) at the University of Edinburgh/UK _ 38 3.6 Airborne remote sensing of salinity gradients in the Great Barrier Reef Lagoon______ 40 3.7 Turbulence and mountain waves _____________________________________________ 42 3.8 Numerical simulation of mountain waves ______________________________________ 44 3.9 Cliff/Ramp structures in the atmosphere ______________________________________ 46 3.10 The influence of strong atmospheric inversions over land on microwave propagation _ 48 3.11 Verification of radar tracking procedures for Japanese NEXST-1 trials_____________ 50 3.12 How does the atmospheric boundary layer adapt to landscape irregularities ? _______ 52 3.13 Using naturally occurring radon gas as a tracer for processes in the ABL ___________ 54 3.14 Catchment Hydrology – combining ground-based, airborne and satellite technologies _ 57 3.15 Test and validation of SMOS satellite algorithms for soil moisture _________________ 64 3.16 Aerosol and chemical transport in tropical convection – the ACTIVE Experiment ____ 67 3.17 Study of Monsoon processes – the TWP-ICE Experiment_________________________ 72 3.18 Aerial timelapse cinematography of thunderstorms______________________________ 75 3.19 Influence of large scale land use changes in Western Australia ____________________ 76 3.20 Setting up a Centre for Aeronautical Research and Education (CARE) within ARA __ 80 3.21 Microgravity flight trials____________________________________________________ 81 3.22 Remote sensing technologies for detecting ephemeral water bodies in creek beds _____ 82 3.23 Survey of gully systems around rivers in the Gulf of Carpentaria region ____________ 84 3.24 Mountain waves over the Andes – Operation Mendoza___________________________ 88 3.25 DTM and DSM for catchment near Devonport/Tas. _____________________________ 91 3.26 Combining airborne Lidar and hyper-spectral scanning for vegetation studies _______ 92 3.27 Trials and verification of the Japanese GoSAT satellite instrumentation ____________ 96 3.28 Setting up a Riegl Q240i lidar on a helicopter for wave studies along beaches ________ 98 http://www.AirborneResearch.org.au Version 15 April 2008 2 Tri-Annual Report 2005-2007 Flinders Centre for Airborne Research - Airborne Research Australia - MNRF 3.29 Setting up a Riegl Q240 lidar on a helicopter for sea ice studies in Antarctica _______ 100 3.30 Verification of Q560 lidar by photogrammetric methods ________________________ 101 3.31 The influence of evaporative ducts over the ocean on microwave propagation_______ 103 3.32 DSM/DTM of the Tully River floodplain for flood prediction_____________________ 105 3.33 Verification of Canadian dust lidar on NASA’s Phoenix Mars mission _____________ 107 4 Staff and Advisory Board _________________________________________________ 110 4.1 Full and part-time staff ____________________________________________________ 110 4.2 Casual Staff and Contractors _______________________________________________ 110 4.3 Senior Advisers and Consultants ____________________________________________ 110 4.4 Higher-Degree Students ___________________________________________________ 111 4.5 Visiting students, work experience students ___________________________________ 111 4.6 FCAR Advisory Board ____________________________________________________ 111 5 Major Assets ___________________________________________________________ 112 6 Usage of Aircraft _______________________________________________________ 113 7 Publications (2005 – 2007 only)____________________________________________ 114 7.1 Publications by FCAR/ARA scientists ________________________________________ 114 7.1.1 Papers in Refereed Journals ______________________________________________________ 114 7.1.2 Conference Papers and Presentations _______________________________________________ 114 7.1.3 Other publications ______________________________________________________________ 115 7.2 Publications of others, related to work supported by FCAR/ARA capabilities_______ 116 7.2.1 Papers in Refereed Journals ______________________________________________________ 116 7.2.2 Conference Papers and Presentations _______________________________________________ 116 7.2.3 Other publications ______________________________________________________________ 118 7.3 Theses __________________________________________________________________ 119 8 ARA/FCAR projects in the News___________________________________________ 120 9 List of acronyms ________________________________________________________ 123 Sunrise over the Great Barrier Reef http://www.AirborneResearch.org.au Version 15 April 2008 3 Tri-Annual Report 2005-2007 Flinders Centre for Airborne Research - Airborne Research Australia - MNRF 1 Director’s Report The three years this report covers were a time of great changes to FCAR/ARA, but also a time of intense activity and great achievements. Between Jan 2005 and Dec 2007, FCAR/ARA contributed research aircraft capabilities to a substantial number of large and small science projects, by deploying aircraft to 30 field campaigns all over Australia and flying another 13 campaigns based at FCAR/ARA’s Operations Base at Parafield Airport, near Adelaide, South Australia. This yielded a total of more than 1,600 flying hours (for details, see Section 6) – flown without any accidents or incidents. Considering that most of this activity was carried out with just one full-time staff member (the Director/Chief Scientist), assisted by a small number of part-time staff (consisting currently of one Research Scientist (0.6FTE), an Operations Supervisor (0.5FTE), a secretary (0.3FTE) and a Chief Pilot (0.05FTE)) and some external contractors (see Section 4), this must be seen as a major achievement. If one adds to this the fact, that in each one of the three years, FCAR/ARA was able to gain considerably more income than what was spent (on a cash-only basis), FCAR/ARA can indeed be very proud on its achievements. With the decision to wind up the commercial company ARA Pty Ltd (the process commenced in 2004 and completed in 2006), FCAR/ARA was finally able to concentrate fully on supporting science applications, as well as carrying out its own science. As such, the organization was actively collaborating with groups from 14 Australian Universities, 12 Australian non-university organizations and agencies, as well as 38 overseas entities. For a list of the collaborators and the nature of the collaborations, see Section 2.4. -o-o-o-o-o-o-o- This report is a good opportunity to look back on the activities of the three years and to pick out some of the highlights. Perhaps the author should apologise at this stage that much of the following might sound like a personal report about “adventures at FCAR/ARA” – but that’s just how it is in the light of the staff situation at FCAR/ARA, and I hope that the reader will appreciate, or even enjoy this fact. - 2005 - Apart from the fact that 2005 was the first year where FCAR/ARA operated two identical Diamond Aircraft