96/04/17 CART site activity

Meteorology at the Central Facility

Weather Conditions from Site Operators Log

Visiting Instruments at Central Facilities

The T-39, DC-8 and ER-2 flew a coordinated mission over the CART site, under patchy cirrus clouds. The T-39 created contrails (by flying circles) upwind of the CART site. At the same altitude, but downwind of the CART site, the DC-8 flew perpendicular to the wind-direction to sample the remnants of the T-39 contrails, which were not too persistent to be easily identified, and to profile the patchy cirrus cloud-field. The ER-2, while flying an wind pattern, observed the other aircraft from above them.

The T-39, DC-8 and ER-2 flew a coordinated mission over the CART site, with the DC-8 and T-39 sampling each others exhaust plume while the ER-2 flew a racetrack pattern above them. The T-39 measured the DC-8 plume at distances from 0.8km-8.0km. The DC-8 reported that the tropopause was too warm for contrail formation, however, the T-39 observed short lived contrails (1km-2km) from commercial aircraft at 32kft west of the CART site. Clear skies/low level cumulus was reported by all three aircraft.