Prepping an Aerosol Observing System for Delivery

 
Published: 24 June 2016

Editor’s note: Stephen R. Springston, a scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and lead instrument mentor for ARM’s aerosol observing system, sent this update.

This afternoon, June 21, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) took delivery of the enclosure for the new Southern Great Plains (SGP) aerosol observing system (AOS). This photo shows the SeaTainer sitting in its temporary home at BNL.

Over the coming months, BNL will install instruments, the inlet mast, electronics, plumbing, signal wiring and other infrastructure components. Then a BNL team of instrument mentors will put the complete system through its paces at each step of the measurement process from the atmosphere to the instruments to a final form data set.

This will be the sixth AOS structure assembled at BNL for delivery to ARM. Last month, all five earlier systems were in operation measuring aerosols and their precursors. Current deployment sites include Ascension Island (mobile AOS); McMurdo Station, Antarctica (second ARM Mobile Facility [AMF2] AOS); SGP (temporary deployment of the AMF3 AOS); and the Azores (ENA AOS).

The new generation of these systems—which started with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—provided a stable laboratory environment for instruments; a self contained structure with HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air conditioning], computers, lights, sampling tower and other ancillaries; a simple common graphical user interface for most instruments; and the capability for remote monitoring by instrument mentors.

Although BNL says farewell to the structure once it is handed off to the operators, BNL staff stay intimately connected as instrument mentors. While the systems are usually deployed with other measurement systems as part of a site or AMF, they can and have been operated independently. With only minor configuration changes, these new AOS systems have been deployed in many, exotic environments including the tropics, the Arctic and Antarctic, deserts, a mountaintop, and on several ships.

So far, they have withstood blazing heat, freezing cold, 100 mph winds, torrential rains, and while at BNL, a minor earthquake!

This new SGP AOS is scheduled to be deployed this fall at the SGP Central Facility and will stay for the next five years, but is fully capable of going on the road with the rest of its brethren.

The aerosol observing system being fixed and updated with new instruments in preparatino for deployment to the Southern Great Plains site.
The aerosol observing system being prepared for deployment at Brookhaven National Laboratory.