1 July 2022, Smith
TRACER
Tracking Aerosol Convection Interactions Experiment (TRACER)
1 October 2021 - 30 September 2022
Lead Scientist: Michael Jensen
Observatory: amf, hou
During the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER), scientists will use the first ARM Mobile Facility (AMF1), the second-generation C-Band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radar (CSAPR2), and a small satellite (ancillary) site with radiosonde and aerosol measurements to learn more about cloud and aerosol interactions in the deep convection over the Houston, Texas, area.
The Houston region offers a unique environment where isolated convective systems are common and experience a spectrum of polluted aerosol conditions from urban and industrial areas. In addition, surrounding areas also show significantly lower background aerosol concentrations.
The TRACER campaign has been postponed from its originally planned dates due to COVID-19 risks associated with the earlier dates. The revised dates for TRACER are October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022.
TRACER also will include a four-month intensive operational period (IOP). A climatological analysis of radar observations from the Houston/Galveston-area NEXRAD (KHGX) shows that convective initiation occurs in this area on 40 to 55 percent of the days each month of the year. The total number of convective events is strongly peaked during the months of June through September. To capture these events, the TRACER IOP will run from June 1 to September 30, 2022.
With this single IOP during the convective season of 2022, this effectively postpones the original TRACER IOP by one year.
The TRACER campaign consists of three primary sites operated by ARM:
- the AMF1 main site (M1) in La Porte, Texas, an area that experiences significant polluted conditions, 29° 40' 12" N, 95° 3' 32.4" W (29.670000, -95.059000)
- the ancillary site (S3) to the southwest of downtown Houston in a rural region with less pollution, 29° 19′ 40.8″ N, 95° 44′ 27.6″ W (29.328000, -95.741000)
- the CSAPR2 site (S2) located approximately midway between the AMF1 and ancillary sites, 29° 31′ 55.2″ N, 95° 17′ 2.4″ W (29.532000, -95.284000)
The main and CSAPR2 sites will operate during the entire TRACER campaign, while the ancillary site will only operate during the IOP. Operation dates for the three primary sites are as follows:
- Main (M1): October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022
- CSAPR2 (S2): October 1, 2021, to September 30, 2022
- Ancillary (S3): June 1 to September 30, 2022.
During the IOP, ARM will host many guest experiments and interagency collaborations at the TRACER sites. All three primary sites will host guest experiments, but most will be at the main site.
In addition, during the 2022 IOP, ARM is planning tethered balloon system (TBS) flights at the ancillary site.
Co-Investigators
| Sarah Brooks | Pavlos Kollias | Rebecca Sheesley |
| Don Collins | Chongai Kuang | Jeffrey Snyder |
| Scott Collis | Matthew Kumjian | Philip Stier |
| Eric Defer | Toshihisa Matsui | Sascha Usenko |
| Jiwen Fan | Greg McFarquhar | Sue van den Heever |
| James Flynn | Chris Nowotarski | Marcus van Lier-Walqui |
| Ann Fridlind | Richard Orville | Adam Varble |
| Scott Giangrande | Mariko Oue | Yuxuan Wang |
| Robert Griffin | Anita Rapp | Guang Zhang |
| Jiaxi Hu | Daniel Rosenfeld | Renyi Zhang |
| Robert Jackson | Alexander Ryzhkov |
Timeline
- Child Campaign
Related Publications
2024
Kasparoglu S, N Meskhidze, and M Petters. 2024. "Aerosol mixing state, new particle formation, and cloud droplet number concentration in an urban environment." Science of The Total Environment, 951, 175307, 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175307.
Mayol-Bracero O, J Uin, S Smith, J Shilling, M Zawadowicz, A Singh, J Creamean, A Sedlacek, C Hayes, D Campos DeOliveira, M Salatti, O Enekwizu, M Petters, S Petters, and A Theisen. 2024. ARM FY2025 Aerosol Operations Plan. Ed. by Robert Stafford, ARM user facility. DOE/SC-ARM-TR-311.
Romps D. 2024. "Principles of stereo reconstruction of aerial objects using stationary cameras." Remote Sensing Letters, 15(11), 10.1080/2150704X.2024.2399330.
Wang D, E Melvin, N Smith, M Jensen, S Gupta, A Abdullah-Smoot, N Pszeniczny, and T Hahn. 2024. "TRACER Perspectives on Gulf-Breeze and Bay-Breeze Circulations and Coastal Convection." Monthly Weather Review, 152(10), 10.1175/MWR-D-23-0292.1.
Kasparoglu S, L Cai, N Meskhidze, and M Petters. 2024. "Evolution of refractory black carbon mixing state in an urban environment." Atmospheric Environment, 333, 120651, 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2024.120651.
McGraw R and T Subba. 2024. "Geometry of Non-Diffusive Tracer Transport in Gridded Atmospheric Models." Atmosphere, 15(10), 10.3390/atmos15101151.
Kumar J, Y Li, G Chelluboyina, B Sumlin, J Puthussery, T Kapoor, and R Chakrabarty. 2024. "Correcting filter-based aerosol light absorption measurement biases in a coastal urban-industrial region." Aerosol Science and Technology, , 10.1080/02786826.2024.2384892.
Kassianov E, C Flynn, J Barnard, B Ermold, and J Comstock. 2024. "Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer-Hemispheric (SAS-He): design and evaluation." Atmospheric Measurement Techniques, 17(16), 10.5194/amt-17-4997-2024.
Silber I and JM Comstock. 2024. Plan Position Indicator Hydrometeor Field Statistics (PPIHYD) Evaluation Data Product Version 1.0. ARM user facility. DOE/SC-ARM-TR-307.
Lamer K, Z Mages, B Treserras, P Walter, Z Zhu, A Rapp, C Nowotarski, S Brooks, JH Flynn, M Sharma, PM Klein, M Spencer, E Smith, JG Gebauer, T Bell, L Bunting, T Griggs, T Wagner, and K McKeown. 2024. "Spatially distributed atmospheric boundary layer properties in Houston – A value-added observational dataset." Scientific Data, 11(1), 661, 10.1038/s41597-024-03477-9.
Research Highlight
View All Related Publications
Campaign Data Sets
| IOP Participant | Data Source Name | Final Data |
|---|---|---|
| Katherine Benedict | Carbon Monoxide and Nitrous Oxide | Order Data |
| Sarah Brooks | Cloud Condensation Nuclei Counter | Order Data |
| Sarah Brooks | Condensation Particle Counter | Order Data |
| Sarah Brooks | DRUM aerosol sampler | Order Data |
| Sarah Brooks | Micropulse Lidar | Order Data |
| Sarah Brooks | Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer | Order Data |
| Chris Cappa | Cavity Ring Down Photoacoustic Spectrometer | Order Data |
| Chris Cappa | Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer | Order Data |
| Chun-Ying Chao | Time of Flight Aerosol Mass Spectrometer | Order Data |
| Don Collins | Merged Cloud Particle Size Distribution | Order Data |
| Don Collins | Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer | Order Data |
| James Flynn | Navigation, Meteorological, and Trace Gas Instrumentation onboard Mobile Air Quality Laboratory | Order Data |
| Joseph Galewsky | Water Vapor Isotope Analyzer | Order Data |
| Kyle Gorkowski | Aerodynamic Part Sizer | Order Data |
| Kyle Gorkowski | Cavity Attenuated Phase Shift Single Scattering Albedo Monitor | Order Data |
| Kyle Gorkowski | Cloud Condensation Nuclei Counter | Order Data |
| Kyle Gorkowski | Photoacoustic Soot Spectrometer | Order Data |
| Kyle Gorkowski | Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer | Order Data |
| Francesca Lappin | Quadcoptor Unmanned Aircraft System | Order Data |
| James Lee | Single Particle Soot Photometer | Order Data |
| James Lee | Soot Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometer | Order Data |
| August Li | Photoacoustic Instrument | Order Data |
| August Li | Tricolor Absorption Photometer | Order Data |
| Markus Petters | Flux Data | Order Data |
| Markus Petters | Humidified Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer | Order Data |
| Markus Petters | Radial Differential Mobility Analyzer | Order Data |
| Markus Petters | Single Particle Soot Photometer | Order Data |
| Anita Rapp | iMET | Order Data |
| Rebecca Sheesley | TSI Nephelometer | Order Data |
| Rebecca Sheesley | Tricolor Absorption Photometer | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Horizontal Winds Derived via a VAD Algorithm using Data from the CLAMPS1 Mobile Facility | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Horizontal Winds Derived via a VAD Algorithm using Data from the CLAMPS2 Mobile Facility | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Horizontal Winds Derived via a VAD Algorithm using Data from the SPARC Mobile Facility | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Thermodynamic Profile Derived from CLAMPS2 Mobile Facility AERI, MWR and TROPoe Algorithm | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Thermodynamic Profiles Derived from CLAMPS2 Mobile Facility MWR and TROPoe Algorithm | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Thermodynamic Profiles Derived from SPARC Mobile Facility AERI and TROPoe Algorithm | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Thermodynamic Profiles derived from CLAMPS1 Mobile Facility AERI Data using the TROPoe Algorithm | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Vertical Velocity from Zenith-Pointing DL Data from the CLAMPS1 Mobile Facility | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Vertical Velocity from Zenith-Pointing DL Data from the CLAMPS2 Mobile Facility | Order Data |
| Elizabeth Smith | Vertical Velocity from Zenith-Pointing DL Data from the SPARC Mobile Facility | Order Data |
| Sascha Usenko | VOC Sampler Onboard a Tethered Balloon System (TBS) | Order Data |
| Paul Walter | Ozone Sondes | Order Data |
| Paul Walter | Ozonesonde Onboard a Tethered Balloon System (TBS) | Order Data |
| Gabrielle Whitson | Distributed Temperature Sensing | Order Data |
| Michael Young | Soil Moisture Sensor and Meteorological Station | Order Data |
| Qi Zhang | Soot Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometer | Order Data |
| Gijs de Boer | general fixed wing unmanned aircraft system (uas) | Order Data |
HOU Data Sources
| Name | Full Name | Browse Data |
|---|---|---|
ACSM |
Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor | Browse Data |
ACSMCDCE |
ACSM, corrected for composition-dependent collection efficiency | Browse Data |
AERI |
Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer | Browse Data |
AERINF |
AERI Noise Filtered | Browse Data |
AETH |
Aethalometer | Browse Data |
AOD-MFRSR |
Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) derived from MFRSR measurements | Browse Data |
AOP |
Aerosol Optical Properties | Browse Data |
AOS |
Aerosol Observing System | Browse Data |
AOSMET |
Meteorological Measurements associated with the Aerosol Observing System | Browse Data |
APS |
Aerodynamic Particle Sizer | Browse Data |
ARMBE |
ARM Best Estimate Data Products | Browse Data |
CAMSITE |
camera that monitors a site area | Browse Data |
CCN |
Cloud Condensation Nuclei Particle Counter | Browse Data |
CEIL |
Ceilometer | Browse Data |
CEILPBLHT |
Boundary-layer height data with CEIL | Browse Data |
CLDTYPE |
Cloud Type Classification | Browse Data |
CMAC |
Corrected Radar Moments in Antenna Coordinates | Browse Data |
CO-ANALYZER |
Carbon Monoxide Analyzer | Browse Data |
CPC |
Condensation Particle Counter | Browse Data |
CPC-AIR |
Condensation particle counter aboard aircraft | Browse Data |
CSAPR |
C-Band Scanning ARM Precipitation Radar | Browse Data |
CSPHOT |
Sunphotometer | Browse Data |
DL |
Doppler Lidar | Browse Data |
DLPROF-WIND |
Doppler Lidar Horizontal Wind Profiles | Browse Data |
DLPROF-WSTATS |
Doppler Lidar Wind Statistics Profiles | Browse Data |
DTS |
Distributed Temperature Sensing | Browse Data |
ECMWFDIAG |
European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts Diagnostic Analyses | Browse Data |
ECOR |
Eddy Correlation Flux Measurement System | Browse Data |
GENSTATE |
Generator State | Browse Data |
GNDRAD |
Ground Radiometers on Stand for Upwelling Radiation | Browse Data |
HTDMA |
Humidified Tandem Differential Mobility Analyzer | Browse Data |
INS |
Ice Nucleation Spectrometer for INP measurement | Browse Data |
INTERPSONDE |
Interpolated Sonde | Browse Data |
IRT |
Infrared Thermometer | Browse Data |
KASACR |
Ka-Band Scanning ARM Cloud Radar | Browse Data |
KAZR |
Ka ARM Zenith Radar | Browse Data |
KAZRARSCL |
Active Remote Sensing of CLouds (ARSCL) product using Ka-band ARM Zenith Radars | Browse Data |
KAZRCFRCOR |
Ka-Band ARM Zenith RADAR (KAZR) CF-Radial, Corrected VAP | Browse Data |
LDIS |
Laser Disdrometer | Browse Data |
LDQUANTS |
Laser Disdrometer Quantities | Browse Data |
MAWS |
Automatic Weather Station | Browse Data |
MERGEDSMPSAPS |
merged size distribution from SMPS and APS | Browse Data |
MERGEDSMPSAPSML |
merged size distribution from SMPS and APS, Machine Learning | Browse Data |
MET |
Surface Meteorological Instrumentation | Browse Data |
MFR |
Multifilter Radiometer | Browse Data |
MFRSR |
Multifilter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer | Browse Data |
MICROBASE |
Continuous Baseline Microphysical Retrieval | Browse Data |
MONITORINST |
sensors for providing instrument system monitoring | Browse Data |
MPL |
Micropulse Lidar | Browse Data |
MPLCMASK |
Cloud mask from Micropulse Lidar | Browse Data |
MPLCMASKML |
Micropulse Lidar Cloud Mask Machine Learning VAP | Browse Data |
MWR |
Microwave Radiometer | Browse Data |
MWR3C |
Microwave Radiometer, 3 Channel | Browse Data |
MWRHF |
Microwave Radiometer - High Frequency | Browse Data |
MWRRET |
MWR Retrievals | Browse Data |
MWRRETV2 |
MWR Retrievals with MWRRET Version 2 | Browse Data |
NEPHELOMETER |
Nephelometer | Browse Data |
NFOV |
Narrow Field of View Zenith Radiometer | Browse Data |
OPC |
Optical Particle Counter | Browse Data |
OZONE |
Ozone Monitor | Browse Data |
PBLHT |
Planetary Boundary Layer Height | Browse Data |
PCCP |
Stereo Reconstructed Point Cloud of Cloud Points (PCCP) | Browse Data |
POPS-AIR |
portable optical particle spectrometer aboard an airborne platform | Browse Data |
PSAP |
Particle Soot Absorption Photometer | Browse Data |
QCECOR |
Quality Controlled Eddy Correlation Flux Measurement | Browse Data |
QCRAD |
Data Quality Assessment for ARM Radiation Data | Browse Data |
RADFLUXANAL |
Radiative Flux Analysis | Browse Data |
RWP |
Radar Wind Profiler | Browse Data |
SASHE |
Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer-Hemispheric | Browse Data |
SASZE |
Shortwave Array Spectroradiometer-Zenith | Browse Data |
SEBS |
Surface Energy Balance System | Browse Data |
SFCMETRADAQ-TCEQ |
Meteorology, radiation, and air quality data from TCEQ air quality stations | Browse Data |
SKYRAD |
Sky Radiometers on Stand for Downwelling Radiation | Browse Data |
SMPS |
Scanning mobility particle sizer | Browse Data |
SO2 |
Sulfur Dioxide Monitor | Browse Data |
SONDE |
Balloon-Borne Sounding System | Browse Data |
SONDEGRID |
Gridded Sonde VAP Product | Browse Data |
SONDEPARAM |
convective parameters derived from radiosonde data | Browse Data |
SP2 |
Single Particle Soot Photometer | Browse Data |
STEREOCAM |
Stereo Cameras for Clouds | Browse Data |
TBS |
Tethered Balloon System | Browse Data |
TBSMERGED |
Tethered Balloon System (TBS) Merged Data Product | Browse Data |
TROPOE |
Tropospheric Optimal Estimation Retrieval | Browse Data |
TSI |
Total Sky Imager | Browse Data |
UHSAS |
Ultra-High Sensitivity Aerosol Spectrometer | Browse Data |
VARANAL |
Constrained Variational Analysis | Browse Data |
VDIS |
Video Disdrometer | Browse Data |
VDISQUANTS |
Video Disdrometer VAP | Browse Data |
VISST |
Minnis Cloud Products Using Visst Algorithm | Browse Data |
WB |
Weighing Bucket Precipitation Gauge | Browse Data |
XSACR |
X-Band Scanning ARM Cloud Radar | Browse Data |