Flux Observations of Carbon from an Airborne Laboratory (FOCAL) system

Air Resources Laboratory (U.S.), Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division,

The Flux Observations of Carbon from an Airborne Laboratory (FOCAL) project is a cooperative effort among the Anderson Group from Harvard University, Aurora Flight Sciences, and NOAA's Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division (NOAA/ATDD) to add scientific instruments to a Diamond Aircraft DA-42 Twin Star aircraft to measure fluxes of CO₂ and CH₄ in the planetary boundary layer. The work, funded by the National Science Foundation in 2012, uses the Anderson Group's Integrated Cavity-Output Spectroscopy (ICOS) instrument suite to measure concentrations and isotopologues of CO₂ and CH₄, NOAA/ATDD's Best Airborne Turbulence (BAT) probe to measure atmospheric turbulence in 3-dimensions, and Aurora Flight Sciences' DA-42 Twin Star aircraft to carry the complete instrument package. The DA- 42 collected 36.9 hours of research data based from Deadhorse Airport in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in August, 2013. A flight track was created to compare the CO₂ and CH₄ flux measurements made by instruments aboard the DA-42 against a groundbased tower which made simultaneous CO₂ and CH₄ flux measurements. Flight tracks were then expanded to measure fluxes far beyond the tower comparison area. Tracks were flown over inland melt-pond lakes and the Arctic Ocean to monitor CH₄ concentrations and fluxes, as well as to compare coincident measurements of bulk water-column and in-situ tundra flux measurements made by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). Tracks were also flown to characterize the background CO₂ and CH₄ concentrations around the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. This report describes the NOAA/ATDD BAT probe instrumentation and the August 2013 Alaska flight campaign. [doi:10.7289/V5/TM-OAR-ARL-267 (http://dx.doi.org/10.7289/V5/TM-OAR-ARL-267)]

http://doi.org/10.7289/V5/TM-OAR-ARL-267

Technical Memorandum

United States

Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)