The Two Column Aerosol Project (TCAP): update and preliminary findings

 
Poster PDF

Authors

Larry Berg — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Jerome D Fast — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
James Barnard — University of Nevada Reno
Brian Cairns — Columbia University
Duli Chand — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Elaine Chapman — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Jennifer M. Comstock — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richard A. Ferrare — NASA - Langley Research Center
Connor J. Flynn — University of Oklahoma
John W. Hair — NASA - Langley Research Center
Chris A. Hostetler — NASA Langley Research Center
John Hubbe — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Yin-Nan Lee — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Phil Russell — NASA - Ames Research Center
Jens Redemann — University of Oklahoma
Arthur J Sedlacek — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Beat Schmid — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
John E Shilling — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Yohei Shinozuka — NASA ARC-CREST BAERI
Stephen R. Springston — Brookhaven National Laboratory
Jason Tomlinson — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Jacqueline Mary Wilson — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Alla Zelenyuk-Imre — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Carl M. Berkowitz — Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Category

Field Campaigns

Description

The Two-Column Aerosol Project (TCAP) is designed to investigate changes in aerosol mixing state, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentration, aerosol radiative forcing, and cloud-aerosol interactions in two atmospheric columns located at different distances from the coast of North America: over Cape Cod, Massachusetts and a location approximately 200 km to the east. The primary reason for selecting this particular region is the large uncertainty in the aerosol optical depth (AOD) simulated by climate models near the edge of North America and a wide variety in the types of cloud cover over this region.

A surface supersite and two research aircraft were deployed during July 2012 for Phase 1 of the campaign. The surface site, which was deployed within the column located over Cape Cod, consists of the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility’s Mobile Facility (AMF) and includes instruments to measure the aerosol chemical composition, size distribution, and optical properties. The AMF is providing continuous measurements until July 2013. The research aircraft included the DOE Gulfstream 1 (G-1) and the NASA Langley King Air B200 (Phase I only). The G-1 was equipped to make in situ observations of aerosol optical properties, chemical composition, particle size distributions, and measurement of AOD above the aircraft using the NASA spectrometers for Sky-Scanning, Sun-Tracking Atmospheric Research (4STAR). The NASA aircraft was equipped with the second generation downward-looking (nadir) high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL-2) and research scanning polarimeter (RSP) to measure aerosol optical properties in the column of air between the aircraft and the ground. TCAP is the first science mission for both 4STAR and HSRL-2. Phase II of the campaign, conducted in February 2013, was designed to focus on cloud-aerosol interactions, in addition to the aerosol radiative forcing. To meet this need, the G-1 was equipped with a counter-flow virtual impactor (CVI) inlet in addition to the isokinetic inlet used in Phase I. The use of the CVI allows us to examine the chemical composition of the particles that have served as CCN.