Overview of POLARCAT intercomparisons
Abstract
POLARCAT has enabled the joint deployment of airborne science platforms by multiple international partners during the spring and summer of 2008 as part of the International Polar Year. The intent of this cooperative effort is to provide atmospheric composition observations across the arctic with coverage much greater than would be possible by any individual group. The success of this strategy, however, depends on demonstrating consistency in common observations between participating platforms. Valuable flight hours were devoted to intercomparison activities to provide such an assessment of measurement consistency. To be presented is a summary of the final data comparison from five paired wingtip-to-wingtip intercomparisons (NASA DC-8 vs. NASA P-3B, NOAA WP-3D vs. NASA DC-8, NOAA WP-3D vs. NASA P-3B, NASA DC-8 vs. DLR Falcon, and DLR Falcon vs. CNRS ATR-146). Many of these comparison results were reviewed by the Tropospheric Airborne Measurement Evaluation Panel (TAbMEP) in July 2009. We highlight successes and challenges in the intercomparison of selected gas phase (e.g., CO, O3, HNO3) and aerosol quantities (absorption, scattering, size distribution), as concluded by the panel. The goal of TAbMEP is to create a unified airborne observational database for use by the modeling community in assessment and validation activities.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFM.A43A0187K
- Keywords:
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- 0365 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- 0394 ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE / Instruments and techniques