AWAREFIL

The ARM West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE) will be the first climate-related field campaign in West Antarctica in more than 40 years, and will use some of the most advanced instrumentation currently available for atmospheric research. The scientific focus of AWARE-Filters is to characterize and understand the abundance, origins, and chemical composition of Antarctic aerosols. An Aerosol Filter Sampling System operated at McMurdo Station during 2016-2017 will collect continuous, week-long samples of atmospheric aerosol particles complementing sparse previous measurements at high southern latitudes. In conjunction with a sophisticated suite of cloud, radiation, and meteorological measurements, AWARE-Filters samples will enable significant improvements to the characterization of aerosol impacts on Southern Ocean and Antarctic clouds and climate. Primary analysis activities for AWARE-Filters will include: (1) measurement of particulate composition using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) and X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy, enabling identification of organic functional groups and trace metal species, (2) characterization of the particles that serve as cloud condensation and ice-forming nuclei, (3) examination of the linkages between aerosol and cloud optical properties including aerosol indirect radiative effects, (4) determination of aerosol source regions using back trajectories, and (5) identification of key meteorological factors governing aerosol properties through classification of the annual time series into meteorological regimes using k-means cluster analysis.

Timeline

Campaign Data Sets

AWR Data Sources