CAMP2Ex White Paper

The Clouds, Aerosol, and Monsoon Processes-Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) is a proposed NASA airborne mission scheduled for summer 2019 to characterize the role of anthropogenic and natural aerosol particles in modulating the frequency and amount of warm and mixed phase precipitation in the vicinity of the Philippines during the Southwest Monsoon. In partnership with Philippine research and operational weather communities, CAMP2Ex will provide a comprehensive 4-D observational view of the environment of the Philippines and its neighboring waters in terms of microphysical, hydrological, dynamical, thermodynamical and radiative properties of the environment, targeting the environment of shallow cumulus and cumulus congestus clouds. Three core NASA focus areas are embedded within the project:

1) Aerosol and cloud microphysics: To examine how aerosol particle concentration and composition effect the optical and microphysical properties of shallow cumulous and congests cloud, and how, ultimately, these effects relate to the transition from shallower to deeper convection.

2) Cloud and Aerosol Radiation: To study how spatially inhomogeneous and changing aerosol and cloud fields impact three dimensional heating rates and fluxes, and determine the extent to which 3 dimensional effects may feedback into the evolution of the aerosol, cloud, and precipitation fields.

3) Aerosol and cloud meteorology: Determine the meteorological features that are the most influential in regulating the distribution of aerosol particles throughout the regional atmosphere and, ultimately, aerosol lifecycle, and ascertain the extent to which aerosol- cloud interactions studies are confounded and/or modulated by co-varying meteorology. 

Full white paper