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ACTIVATE

Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE)

https://activate.larc.nasa.gov/

Riding the marine layer skies looking for aerosol particles – to predict future climate change.

Simulate climate and predict change as it happens!

NASA’s ACTIVATE mission is on the hunt for clouds off the coast over the western Atlantic Ocean! It is looking for answers to help us understand how clouds and aerosols (particles in the air) affect light and heat from the sun. The size and number of cloud droplets within a cloud determines things like how long the cloud lasts, how well it traps heat at the earth’s surface, or how well it reflects sunlight. All of these can have a significant impact on the earth’s climate. One of the largest unknowns in climate change is how the interaction between clouds and aerosols impacts the climate and understanding this is critical towards improving predictions of how future climate will be impacted by human emissions.

“Climate change is one of the most pressing issues we are facing on this planet; it is important for all regions of the world. I have spent my research career studying aerosol particles and the extension to how these particles interact with clouds has opened up a whole new avenue of greater challenges that entices me. The research involves using airborne platforms, which has always been of interest to me as I have always been drawn to airplanes.” – Armin Sorooshian, Principal Investigator

NASA’s ACTIVATE investigation is a five-year project studying how clouds and aerosols interact. Aerosols are very tiny particles that are suspended in the atmosphere and are often the “seed that cloud droplets form around. ACTIVATE focuses on marine boundary layer (MBL) clouds off of the east coast of North America. This region sees a large source of aerosols transported from the US eastern seaboard, making it an ideal area to study these interactions. ACTIVATE is aiming to collect a dataset on aerosol and cloud interactions of unprecedented size and statistics. What’s unique about this investigation? NASA Langley’s King Air and the HU-25A Falcon aircraft are flying together in coordinated patterns to simultaneously gather data from well above the clouds and from directly within the vicinity of the cloud deck itself. These data for both aerosols and clouds will give scientists better understanding as to how these mediums interact and affect our climate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAvhIVlvtgw

https://activate.larc.nasa.gov/media/#videos

https://activate.larc.nasa.gov/files/2020/07/ACTIVATE_DropSonde_20191216_141420_v2.mp4

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/activate-makes-a-careful-return-to-flight

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/probing-the-hazy-mysteries-of-marine-clouds

Related Projects

DC3 and SEAC4RS campaigns, CAMP2Ex campaign, ORACLES, NAAMES, and CAMP2Ex, CALIPSO, NASA Aerosol, Clouds, Convection, and Precipitation (ACCP), National Academy of Science 2017 Decadal Study recommendations

AirMOSS

Airborne Microwave Observatory of Subcanopy and Subsurface (AirMOSS)

https://airmoss.jpl.nasa.gov/

The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) is a five-year mission specifically targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin. HS3 is motivated by hypotheses related to the relative roles of the large-scale environment and storm-scale internal processes.

ATTREX

Despite its low concentration, stratospheric water vapor has large impacts on the earth’s energy budget and climate. Recent studies suggest that even small changes in stratospheric humidity may have climate impacts that are significant compared to those of decadal increases in greenhouse gases. Future changes in stratospheric humidity and ozone concentration in response to changing climate are significant climate feedbacks.

Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATOM)

Come journey with us and see your impact on the earths’ atmosphere! Can we slow global warming and improve air?

Atom studies the impact of human-produced air pollution on greenhouse gasses and the atmosphere. Pollution changes the air we are breathing right now. This is powerful information for improving our current and future air quality. It helps policy makers with actionable facts and informs modified behavior. We can actually measure our combined impact.

NASA’s AToM has a flying laboratory aboard the DC-8 aircraft. 42 scientists and operations crew flew with AToM on a 26-day journey from nearly pole to pole and back again. They measured more than 200 gases and airborne particles from the remotest parts of the atmosphere and learned how various greenhouse gases cycle around the world. Atom shows how it’s all one interconnected atmosphere no matter where in the world you are!

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CARVE

The carbon budget of Arctic ecosystems is not known with confidence since fundamental elements of the complex Arctic biological-climatologic-hydrologic system are poorly quantified. CARVE collected detailed measurements of important greenhouse gases on local to regional scales in the Alaskan Arctic and demonstrated new remote sensing and improved modeling capabilities to quantify Arctic carbon fluxes and carbon cycle-climate processes.

CloudSat

CloudSat

https://cloudsat.atmos.colostate.edu/home

https://cloudsat.atmos.colostate.edu/data

CloudSat is one of NASA’s weather and climate-tracking satellites, and from its name, it’s apparent what it measures – clouds!! Clouds have an enormous influence on Earth’s weather, climate and energy balance, and CloudSat has been helping scientists learn about clouds since it was launched on a Delta II rocket in 2006. From providing a view from space as we watch an approaching hurricane to providing details about how clouds impact radiation from the sun and the climate, CloudSat has been understanding the impact of clouds for nearly 15 years.

The cloud radar on CloudSat is 1000 times more sensitive than most weather radars on the ground. With its long history sending us data about clouds, CloudSat has contributed so much valuable information! CloudSat provides a never-before-seen perspective on clouds; its radar allows us to see inside the large cloud masses that make our weather. This helps us understand processes such as those that convert the tiny cloud particles to precipitation. Key discoveries from CloudSat have included how often the clouds above Earth rain and snow, how much ice and water are in clouds, and how clouds heat or cool the atmosphere. Cloudsat measurements have shown how pollution, volcanic ash, and other aerosols can interact with clouds and affect both precipitation and how efficiently clouds reflect sunlight, which has a huge impact on climate. The cloud and precipitation measurements from CloudSat have been used to track the intensity and patterns of tropical cyclones as they become hurricanes. All of these critical observations will ultimately help us predict the effects of clouds on our climate and improve our predictions of climate change.

NASA launched the CloudSat and the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) spacecraft to study the role that clouds and aerosols play in regulating Earth’s weather, climate and air quality.

CORAL

COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL)

https://www.nasa.gov/content/earth-expeditions-coral
https://coral.jpl.nasa.gov/

The three-year COral Reef Airborne Laboratory (CORAL) mission will survey a portion of the world’s coral reefs to assess the condition of these threatened ecosystems and understand their relation to the environment, including physical, chemical and human factors. CORAL will use advanced airborne instruments, including the Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM), and in-water measurements. The investigation will assess the reefs of Palau, the Mariana Islands, portions of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and Hawaii beginning in 2016. With new understanding of reef condition, the future of this global ecosystem can be predicted.

CYGNSS

Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS)

A new constellation in space is telling us how hurricanes and floods are threatening us on Earth

https://www.nasa.gov/cygnss

On December 15, 2016, an aircraft called “Stargazer” took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida and flew a hundred miles or so off the coast. During flight, a rocket was launched from the aircraft carrying eight NASA micro-satellites into space called Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS). The CYGNSS microsatellites are currently orbiting the tropics about 315 miles up. CYGNSS is used to measure winds in tropical storms and hurricanes. Since it can “see” the winds inside the storms and at the surface of the ocean, CYGNSS is able to improve predictions of how strong hurricanes will get and where they will make landfall. Not only is CYGNSS looking at the ocean, it is also studying moisture levels in the land. These soil moisture measurements can improve predictions of soil saturation, rain runoff and flooding. This data helps keep people who live in coastal areas safe from hurricane disasters and helps them plan better communities to combat future storms.

“It is very gratifying to see the potential CYGNSS has to make useful, practical contributions to people’s everyday lives by improving forecasts of storms and floods.” – Chris Ruf, PI, CYGNSS

The technology on each of the CYGNSS microsatellites is something familiar – a GPS! When CYGNSS sends GPS radio signals to the earth and they are bounced off of ocean waves, the signal that is reflected back to the satellite tells us what the winds are like right at the ocean surface. Since it was launched in 2016, scientists have been learning how to use CYGNSS data in many other ways too. It is able to show us flooded areas on land – during Hurricane Harvey, CYGNSS was used to identify the spread of the flooding over the Houston area. This helps “first responders” know which areas need urgent help during flooding disasters. Recently, CYGNSS has been used to help locate areas of a major locust outbreak in East Africa. CYGNSS satellites may be micro-sized, but they have a huge role in helping us better understand hurricanes, flooding, and locusts.

The Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) will probe the inner core of hurricanes to learn about their rapid intensification.

DCOTSS

Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere (DCOTSS)

https://dcotss.org/

DCOTSS Outreach

During the summer, strong convective storms over North America overshoot the tropopause into the lower stratosphere. These storms carry water and pollutants from the troposphere into the normally very dry stratosphere, where they can have a significant impact on radiative and chemical processes, potentially including stratospheric ozone. The photo below, taken from the International Space Station, shows one of these storms with an anvil, which is typically near the tropopause level; an overshooting top; and a plume of cirrus (ice) clouds injected into the stratosphere by the overshooting top. Overshooting tops can reach many kilometers above the tropopause into the stratosphere.

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