NOAA ESRL Atmospheric Research Operations in California

In 2009 the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) had over two dozen operational research programs within the state of California. These diverse research missions include the Fire Weather Service and Support, the Pt Sur Debris Flow Project, and the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) regional test bed. The ESRL Global Monitoring Division had 10 atmospheric measurement programs with a common goal to understand the regional and global climate impacts in and around California. The NOAA Trinidad Head (THD) baseline observatory, run in cooperation with Humboldt State University (HSU), was recently promoted to the top-tier WMO/Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) global station in 2009. The Trinidad Head observatory was strategically located (April 2002) along the west coast to monitor the air entering the United States and is now being impacted by effluents and anthropogenic aerosols and gases from booming Asian economies. Recent forest fire seasons in CA have had dramatic effects on aerosol properties and ozone concentrations measured at the THD site. Light aircraft flights made by NOAA/ESRL as part of the Airborne Greenhouse Emissions Survey (AGES) campaign in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Davis in the spring and summer of 2008 captured large signals indicative of urban air plumes with highly correlated CO2, CH4, CO, as well as agricultural signatures with enhanced CH4 coincident with depleted CO2. These flights also captured a large signal from the northern CA wildfires enabling the comparison of signatures from forest fires to other sources. Ozonesonde balloon flights have been done weekly at the THD site since August of 1997 and bi-monthly vertical aircraft profiles above THD for carbon cycle gases (>50 gas species) began in September of 2003. In 2008 carbon cycle flasks were added to the HSU research vessel, the Coral Sea, to obtain surface values ~20 nautical miles offshore from the THD observatory. Particular attention will be paid to the networks these measurements support and the future potential for co-location with other research partners.