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Synonyms: 
AVE-Houston2
Associated content: 
AVE-Houston2

CIMS Lab Setup In Building 990

Ryan With Harvard H2O Wing Pod

PANTHER In Transition Area

O3 Photometer (NOAA)

Ozone (O3) in the lower stratosphere (LS) is responsible for absorbing much of the biologically damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sunlight, and thus plays a critical role in protecting Earth's environment. By absorbing UV light, O3 heats the surrounding air, leading to the vertical stratification and dynamic stability that define the stratosphere. Manmade halogen compounds, such as CFCs, cause significant damage to the O3 layer in the LS and lead to the formation of the Antarctic ozone hole. Accurate measurement of O3 in the LS is the first step toward understanding and protecting stratospheric O3. The Ozone Photometer was designed specifically for autonomous, precise, and accurate O3 measurements in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS). Flown for thousands of hours onboard the NASA ER-2, NASA WB-57, and NSF GV high-altitude aircraft, this instrument has played a key role in improving our understanding of O3 photochemistry in the UT/LS. Furthermore, its accurate data has been used, and continues to be highly sought after, for satellite validation, and studies of radiation balance, stratosphere-troposphere exchange, and air parcel mixing. Contacts: Ru-Shan Gao, David Fahey, Troy Thornberry, Laurel Watts, Steve Ciciora

Instrument Type: 
Photometer
Measurements: 
O3
Aircraft: 
Gulfstream V - NSF, WB-57 - JSC, Global Hawk - AFRC
Point(s) of Contact: 
Troy Thornberry (PI)

Whole Air Sampler

The Whole Air Sampler (WAS) collects samples from airborne platforms for detailed analysis of a wide range of trace gases. The compounds that are typically measured from the WAS includes trace gases with sources from industrial midlatitude emissions, from biomass burning, and from the marine boundary layer, with certain compounds (e.g. organic nitrates) that have a unique source in the equatorial surface ocean. The use of a broad suite of tracers with different sources and lifetimes provides powerful diagnostic information on air mass history and chemical processing that currently is only available from measurements from whole air samples. Previous deployments of the whole air sampler have shown that the sampling and analytical procedures employed by our group are capable of accessing the wide range of mixing ratios at sufficient precision to be used for tracer studies. Thus, routine measurement of species, such as methyl iodide, at <= 0.1 x 10-12 mole fraction, or NMHC at levels of a few x 10-12 mole fraction are possible. In addition to the tracer aspects of the whole air sampler measurements, we measure a full suite of halocarbon species that provide information on the role of short-lived halocarbons in the tropical UT/LS region, on halogen budgets in the UT/LS region, and on continuing increasing temporal trends of HFCs (such as 134a), HCFCs (such as HCFC 141b), PFCs (such as C2F6), as well as declining levels of some of the major CFCs and halogenated solvents. The measurements of those species that are changing rapidly in the troposphere also give direct indications of the age and origin of air entering the stratosphere.

Instrument Type: 
Whole Air Sampling
Measurements: 
NMHCs, Halocarbons
Aircraft: 
C-130H - WFF, DC-8 - AFRC, ER-2 - AFRC, WB-57 - JSC
Point(s) of Contact: 
Elliot Atlas (PI)

Scanning High-Resolution Interferometer Sounder

The Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS) is a scanning interferometer which measures emitted thermal radiation at high spectral resolution between 3.3 and 18 microns The measured emitted radiance is used to obtain temperature and water vapor profiles of the Earth's atmosphere in clear-sky conditions. S-HIS produces sounding data with 2 kilometer resolution (at nadir) across a 40 kilometer ground swath from a nominal altitude of 20 kilometers onboard a NASA ER-2 or Global Hawk.

Instrument Type: 
Interferometer
Measurements: 
Temperature, H2O
Aircraft: 
DC-8 - AFRC, ER-2 - AFRC, Global Hawk - AFRC, WB-57 - JSC, Proteus
Point(s) of Contact: 
Joe Taylor (PI)

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