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| UNIVERSITY EDUCATION : Faculty | Courses | Fellowships | Students | Graduates | Partners |
Enhancing Optical Remote Sensing capabilities of a NOAA research aircraft by Airborne Multi-Axes Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (AMAX-DOAS) |
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The Optical Remote Sensing group at ESRL is seeking to enhance its capabilities to study ozone and aerosol air pollution from research aircraft. In close collaboration with the Atmospheric Trace Molecule Spectroscopy Laboratory at CU Boulder, the existing CU AMAX-DOAS instrument will be deployed on a NOAA Twin-Otter research aircraft as part of the planned CalNex field campaign in California in 2010. The NOAA Twin-Otter is currently equipped with an ozone and aerosol LIDAR system for air quality studies. The successful candidate will (1) help deploy the CU AMAX-DOAS instrument to study Air Quality and aerosol life cycles, (2) probe the horizontal and vertical distribution of NO2, SO2, and possibly BrO, IO, formaldehyde, glyoxal, ozone and other pollutants that absorb in the near UV and visible regions, and (3) exploit synergies from collocated CU AMAX-DOAS and LIDAR deployments to constrain aerosol optical properties, Ox (=O3+NO2) and calibrate the LIDAR. The highly innovative trace gas remote sensing capabilities of the CU AMAX-DOAS enable simultaneous retrieval of spatial distribution of some of the key pollutants in the lower atmosphere, and fill an existing gap in currently existing observational capabilities from air quality monitoring networks (at ground-level) and satellites (top-down view); the CU AMAX-DOAS allows testing of the quantitative use of satellites to infer emissions in form of concentrated (e.g., power plant) and diffuse (e.g., from urban regions) plumes, and provides for a more direct comparison with photochemical models that are the basis for policy and management of air resources. The successful applicant will have the option to participate in a second phase of test flights already during the summer of 2009 to learn about the instrument, though such participation is not a requirement to carry out the project. |
NOAA ESRL Contact CIRES Contact |
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