Key Projects Wrap Up Successful Missions

SEAC4RS (Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys) studies how summer storms interact with air pollution and smoke from forest fires to the climate.  Convective storms can loft pollution and gases high into the stratosphere, potentially changing atmospheric chemistry and damaging the ozone layer.   This summer, using three different aircraft, the project completed over 70 flight missions, mostly over the southeastern United States.   The aircraft contain dozens of instruments to measure cloud and aerosol properties, at times flying simultaneously through storms and above them to maximize data capture.

HS3 (Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel) is a five-year mission specifically targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin.  A particular focus of the study is an exploration of the role of the Saharan Air Layer in tropical storm formation and intensification as well as the role of deep convection in the inner-core region of storms.  The program uses two of NASA’s Global Hawk UAV’s, each equipped with state-of-the-art science instruments.  One aircraft has been used to monitor the environment around storms to look for conditions favorable for storm formation and intensification. The other aircraft has been flown directly over storms to collect data on the inner-core structures that lead to storm intensity change.   Global Hawk 872 completed its last HS3 flight for the 2013 season on September 26.

BAERI staff on both of these projects include Yohei Shinozuka, Ceclia Chang, Gong Zhang, Meloe Kacenelenbogen, John Dean Day, Patrick Hillyard, Susan McFadden , Erin Justice,

Quincy Allison, Erin Czech, Sue Tolley, Pat Finch, Steven Todorov, and Dan Chirica.

For more information on SEAC4RS, see:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/seac4rs/index.html#.UkXCiz-UNs7

For more information on HS3, see:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/missions/hs3/index.html#.Uk…