Emerging Technologies & New Developments

Walt Dabberdt & Alan Fried

Technological needs based on scientific discussions from this workshop and not new EOL developments (new dev. on EOL Web site)

ET & ND (1)• Cost effectiveness• How does EOL prioritize?

– # of affected users; platforms vs. instruments• Value and cost of continued development of existing instruments • Mass spectroscopy• a/c instr. & inlet test facility

– Wind tunnel?• Quality of existing data• Science drivers vs. technology drivers• Long-term vs.short-term needs• Who should prioritize? EOL EAC? Internal EOL AC? EOL call for new developments

(annual).• FAS is identifying all atmospheric science existing and emerging technologies; not

prioritizing.• Ocean-based instr. Development at EOL?• Ground truth for satellite observations• GPM needs DSD networks; technology exists• EOL priorities question: role of CTS instrumentation at EOL v.v. universities?

ET & ND (2)• HIAPER and ELDORA are good instr. sharing models;

tech sharing vs. instr. sharing• Low-level low-cost lidar needs: wind energy; air-sea

interaction; urban dispersion; air pollution transport; complex terrain; MH structure; flux estimation (esp.in rain); convection initiation

• Towed instrumented drone; safety; CO2, winds, p,T; 70 lbs. 250W

• Blimps (one in Germany); urban applications; tethered instr. Pkg.

• French stratospheric balloon – offered to share• CASA testbed in OK; Q: future facility at NCAR?• Low-cost sensor networks?

Airborne Instruments: Atmospheric Chemistry

• BrO and IO and other halogens (HCl, HF, HBr, BrONO2 etc.) throughout atmosphere.

• Ensure that “routine” instruments for species like NO are maintained.

• Develop smaller, lighter, and autonomous instruments for platforms like the G-V.

• H2O and O3 Lidars on high flying aircraft to provide profiling capabilities.

• Fast (1 – 10 sec) in situ instruments to understand O3 production in UT/LS (OH, HO2, RO2, CH2O, methanol, formic acid, peroxides, VOCs, etc.)

Airborne Instruments: Climate Research

• Small HDO/H2O G-V instrument to understand water transport mechanism in the UT/LS and to identify evaporative and condensation processes.

• Water vapor reference radiosonde• Better understand discrepancies of present

airborne water vapor instruments. • Radiance profiling on sondes.

Airborne Instruments: Microphysics & Meteorology

• Ice nuclei measurements• CCN measurements (no capabilities in EOL)• New particle size instruments to accurately measure large

droplets• In cloud temperature measurements• Cheap in situ sensors on dropsondes to measure T, H2O in

lowest 5-km. • Hydrometeor types from radars (improved interpretation of

polarimetric radar data).• Investigate and start to deploy new particle probes to

replace 30-year old technology.• Fast temp and humidity probes.

Airborne Instruments: Other Categories

• Inlet test facility (joint US & European effort)– Gas species– Gas species on aerosols and clouds– Aerosols

• Explore the use of Zeppelins for Lagrangian studies.

• Instrument packages to measure mega city emissions (HCs, CO, particles, NOy, peroxides)

Ground-Based and Airborne Radars & Lidars: Mesascale, Cloud

Microphysics & Water Cycle

• Need to have requestable resource that is cost effective, multiple mobile ground-based Doppler & polar. Radars.

• Need mobile rapidly deployable (mins) ground-based rapid scanning (10-sec) Radars (X, W-bands) with high spatial resoln. (250-m or better).

Ground-Based and Airborne Radars & Lidars

• Need calibrated Lidars to sort out direct and indirect effects of aerosols.

• Remote meas of scaler fluxes in BL (Doppler Lidar and water vapor DIAL)

• Need to explore combined Lidar and Radar meas.

Ground-Based and Airborne Radars & Lidars

• Continued emphasis on multiple frequencies on same Radar (same antenna or side-by-side), adds new information.

• Can we make a deployable (1 day) clear-air Radar system (circumvent tradeoffs).

• Engineering study for transportable scanning, dual polariz, Doppler, vertical pointing with co-mounted Lidar.

Ground-Based and Airborne Radars & Lidars

• Exploring network of ground-based scanning micro-radiometers for clear-air meas of T, and winds.

• Networked of Radar systems. • Airborne Lidars for clear-air measurements.

Ground-Based/Marine Remote & In-Situ Instruments: Chemistry

• New instruments to detect large organic molecules (gas and aerosols) at sub-ppbv levels

• Carbon isotope ratio instruments for CO2 uptake fluxes (different land ecosystems, coastal zones, etc.)

Ground-Based/Marine Remote & In-Situ Instruments: Meteorology

• Meteorological test beds, integrated urban observing systems which cover many annual cycles

• Measurements that influence flux from the ocean surface.

Ground-Based/Marine Remote & In-Situ Instruments: Fluxes

• Autonomous instruments (on UAVs, dropsondes, oil drilling platforms, etc.) to measure fluxes during and immediately after severe weather events (hurricanes, etc.)

ISF Discussion Group – Q1 (concluded)

• Need for QC of state mesonets (Peggy LeMone)• Beasley: how are NSF and EOL priorities established?• ISF’s proposed Modular Profiling Network (MPN)

ISF Discussion Group – Q1: Adequacy of Existing Facilities?

• Need for low-level wind and turbulence profiling – new fiber optic devices• Profiling vs. volumetric sampling• Temperature and moisture profiling; constituent profiling (e.g. DIAL)• Q: rapid-deployable GPS IWV networks?• Air quality measurement needs?• Q: how does EOL set priorities? Acquire financial resources?• Need for in situ precip measurements?• June Wang: is there a need for EOL tethersonde capability?

– Alan White: USAF border patrol high-altitude tethered balloon (radar) systems• WFD: single-point, comprehensive measurements/profiles vs. networks

(surface vs. profiling)?• ISF facilities need to be deployable• Coop mesonets are being relied on in an increasing manner

ISF Discussion Group – Q2: What New Measurements are Needed?

• Should EOL get more involved in AQ needs (e.g. AQ testbed)?• Bluestein: rapid-scan radars and truly mobile facilities? Should NCAR work

on mobile radars? NCAR’s role in rapid-scan developments?• Re mobile profiling – what? Thermodynamic and wind, especially in PBL.

Lower half of trop (~10km) as second priority. (Bluestein)• Clear air vs measurements in precip? Need 100-200m vertical resolution

(Bluestein)• Q: More use of instrument simulators (model simulations)?• Radiometrics has 20-sec T and q profiling capability.• Should EOL support operational needs?• Over-water measurement needs? Large % of population lives near coasts.

(Parsons) Should EOL focus more on ocean meas.?• Educational use of EOL facilities? More? Less? Same?• Q: rapid launching of dropsondes and upsondes?• Disdrometer measurements? One is great, but network is better.

ISF Discussion Group – Q2: What New Measurements are Needed?

• Brad Smull- reducing dropsonde unit costs? – Terry - underway. Components are changing and design is being modified.

Driftsonde developments transfer to conventional dropsondes. More automated launch mechanism.

• UAVs as an ISF resource? Several participants support this.• Peggy: need for longer-term observations by EOL. Partnering. COTS

AWS’ – cost effective. Chem measurements.• Oncley: need mid-size UAVs; fly below 2km for long duration. Alan White:

flight restrictions over land. Parsons: need to consider cost effectiveness.• Oncley: buoys by EOL?

ISF Discussion Group – Q3: Role of NSF v.v. Facilities?

• Peggy: Arden Bement said 2 yrs ago at NCAR that education is a high priority for NSF.

• Peggy: NCAR-academia-private sector partnerships needed. • Nick (NSF) on education at NSF. 7% of NSF’s budget goes to education

programs; physical sciences ~14%• More NCAR staff should visit universities with NCAR instrumentation• Cohn: mid-size instrumentation development to be support by NSF (Cliff);

announcement very soon. FASC is geared explicitly toward identifying instrumentation needs of the universities.

Emerging Technologies & New Developments Discussion

• Q: Restrict discussion to NSF’s role?• Q: How to assign priorities?• Q: NSF’s role in satellite observations?• Q: Can we assign priorities based on 3D vs.

1D and 2D measurement needs?• Q: Should there be an emphasis on certain

parameters? E.g. temperature, water vapor, precip, winds, trace constituents?