AVPOP

Aerosol Vertical Profiling at Oliktok Point

15 May 2018 - 30 May 2018

Lead Scientist: Jessie Creamean

Observatory: AMF, OLI

Aerosols are an important component of the atmospheric system through their various impacts on climate. Notably, the largest uncertainty of the energy budget is the aerosol indirect effect. Aerosol-induced microphysical modifications influence cloud lifetime and albedo. However, constraining aerosol-cloud impacts in climate models, specifically in regions such as the Arctic, remains a significant challenge due to limited observations. The efficacy of an aerosol to impact the Arctic energy budget largely depends on its concentration, composition, and source. While ground-based measurements will provide a consistent, high resolution time series of aerosol observations, the Arctic atmosphere can be stratified, and thus what is observed on the ground may not be representative of the aerosol aloft. A key gap in Arctic aerosol research is routine vertical profiling of abundance and source characterization. Here, we will deploy ARM instrumentation to address questions connecting several scientific foci related to the vertical structure of aerosols, including: (1) potential sources of aerosol in the Arctic atmosphere, (2) location of aerosol layers with respect to cloud, (3) redistribution of aerosol through interaction with clouds, and (4) aerosol impacts on Arctic cloud microphysics. Such objectives are based on ongoing work and preliminary results from the Inaugural Campaigns for ARM Research using Unmanned Systems (ICARUS) flights from 2016 and 2017 whereby a particle spectrometer (i.e., the Printed Optical Particle Spectrometer or POPS) and particle counter (i.e., a condensation particle counter or CPC) were deployed on the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) TBS system at Oliktok Point (AMF-3). Several case studies are currently under evaluation by the ASR Oliktok Point Site Science Team, including TBS flights from the spring, summer, and fall for evaluation of aerosol vertical profiles during a wide range of seasons and cloud conditions. To comprehensively assess Arctic aerosol sources, vertical distribution, and resulting impacts on clouds, additional profiling from the current work will be conducted to diversify the cases currently under investigation, specifically by providing additional cases where clouds are present during observational periods.