Operations Updates
ARM Climate Research Facility Operations Update - February 28, 2005
This bimonthly report provides a brief summary of significant accomplishments and activities in the operations area of the ARM Climate Research Facility (ACRF).
Readiness of New Lidar Evaluated at Southern Great Plains Site
Aircraft for the Boundary Layer CO2 Intensive Operational Period will fly over the SGP Central Facility using both spirals and racetrack patterns. Data will be collected under a variety of cloud and meteorological conditions.
As the focus of the Boundary Layer Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Intensive Operational Period (IOP) starting in March, science collaborators at ITT Industries and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center (LaRC) will conduct flights over the Central Facility at ACRF's Southern Great Plains (SGP) site using a newly developed type of lidar. By combining robust and reliable telecom fiber lasers with advanced communication signal recovery techniques, ITTs new lidar has the ability to detect small signals and reject common sources of noise - including ambient light, variations in surface albedo, target speckle, and atmosphere turbulence - which can introduce errors into the airborne measurements. The sensing technology is believed to have great potential for future scientific missions by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
In support of the IOP, ACRF operations personnel at SGP assisted with filing of all appropriate Federal Aviation Administration paperwork for operating a non eye-safe laser onboard the Lear 25 aircraft. Routine ARM radiosonde launches will be supplemented with additional launches to bracket the pre-dawn and mid-afternoon flights. The objective of the flights is to validate, by demonstration and comparison with SGP ground observations, the performance of the ITT system when used in conjunction with retrieval algorithms developed by LaRC as they operate together to resolve small variations in the total column concentration of CO2.
This IOP supports carbon cycle research conducted through the Department of Energy's Climate Change Science Program and NASA's Earth Science Enterprise. The IOP may also provide new methods to meet climate data requirements not currently addressed by the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, a satellite system for monitoring global environmental conditions, and collecting and disseminating data related to weather, atmosphere, oceans, land, and the near-space environment.
