| PI Name: | John A. Ogren |
|---|---|
| Co-Investigators: | Anne Jefferson and Patrick J. Sheridan |
| Proposal Title: | Surface Measurements of Aerosol Optical Properties and Hygroscopic Growth |
| Proposal Synopsis: | (Note: this is a section of a proposal that NOAA OGP has approved for funding) Portable Instrument Platform - The development of a portable instrument package that could be deployed to a variety of regions represents a new approach to ground-based measurements of radiative forcing. The focus shifts our research to covering a broader range of climatological regions and aerosol types. The deployment site would be in a region of high interest to the climate forcing community and likely chosen to coincide with intensive field projects (IFP). By coordinating the instrument package with an IFP we have the opportunity to intercompare our measurements with other ground, ship and aircraft based measurements as well as provide a more detailed analysis of our data with respect to climate forcing and integrate our data with direct radiative forcing closure calculations. We would deploy the instrument package for a full year to obtain an indication of the seasonal variability in aerosol properties. The relocation of this platform on an annual basis allows us to construct a database with increased coverage of regions critical to climate forcing research.. The instrument platform will be contained in two or three modular units for ease of transport, setup, installment and operation. As with instruments at our other ground-based sites the platform will have an array of pressure, temperature and flow monitoring and regulating sensors that could detect an instrument malfunction. Data from the site will be transmitted back to the Boulder lab via modem or Internet on a daily basis both for processing and monitoring of measurement conditions. This level of automation and system checking ensures that the instruments function properly for most of their deployment period and require only minor maintenance tasks by a technician at the site. Before deploying our equipment to a station we require that the site have a temperature regulated building, a local station technician, a phone or Internet connection, electrical power and that local pollution sources are absent or in a well-defined sector. We would only need to pay the local technician for the actual time he/she used to perform routine system checks, maintenance and filter changes. A CMDL scientist will need to be at the site during setup and the IFP. The set of instruments in the portable unit will be similar to those at BND and other sites. The platform will contain two TSI model 3563 nephelometers for measurement of both dry and humidity-dependent aerosol scattering coefficients, a Radiance Research Particle Soot Absorption Photometer (PSAP) for measurement of aerosol absorption, a filter carousel for measurements of aerosol composition, a set of impactors for sub-10 micron and submicron aerosol size cuts upstream of aerosol instruments, a humidifier control unit, inlet heaters to dry the sample airstream and the necessary pumps, plumbing, flowmeters and valves. If needed, we also will provide a sample inlet stack. Most of this equipment will come from the Sable Island site. Support is needed for building, testing and deployment of the instrument platform. The following are three candidate sites to deploy this instrument platform over the next 2-3 years. These three regions are representative of different anthropogenic and biogenic sources and thus expected to have significantly different aerosol types. Each site correlates with a future or past IFP. .... South Korea: Our measurements would be set to coincide with the Ace-Asia IFP. Although site location has not been determined yet for this IFP, Cheju Island, South Korea is a likely candidate with an established measurement station. We would be sampling dust and anthropogenic aerosol primarily from China. |