Experiment of Sea Breeze Convection, Aerosols, Precipitation and Environment (ESCAPE)

During the period 30 May to 30 Sept. 2022, a large field experiment entitled: "Experiment of Sea Breeze Convection, Aerosols, Precipitation and Environment (ESCAPE)" supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), took place in Houston TX. The overarching scientific objective of ESCAPE was to collect and analyze observations of the fundamental process-level coupling between coastal convective cloud vertical motions (kinematics), microphysics, and precipitation production across a full range of cloud environments (including background aerosol conditions) and meteorological regimes, throughout their lifecycle.

Two research aircrafts, the National Research Council of Canada Convair-580 and the SPEC Learjet conducted research flights during the period 30 May to 17 June. In total, 24 research flights were conducted. The airborne platforms included state of the art remote sensing capabilities (three airborne Doppler radars and one backscatter lidar) and complete suites of in-situ probes to characterize state parameters, aerosol, and cloud microphysics. On the ground, three mobile X-band radars, and one mobile Doppler lidar truck equipped with radiosonde and windsonde soundings, were deployed during the period 30 May to 28 June. The ground-based platforms provided an improved description of the environment and sea breeze conditions and captured the microphysical and dynamical properties of isolated convective clouds. From 1 August to 30 Sept. 2022, a dual-polarization C-band radar system was deployed and operated using a novel, multisensor agile adaptive sampling strategy to track the entire lifecycle of isolated convective clouds.

Here, a summary of the measurements of the environment, sea breeze, isolated convective clouds and aerosol conditions collected during ESCAPE using the airborne and ground-based observing platforms during the four-month long ESCAPE operational period is presented. The ESCAPE field experiment overlapped with the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) supported by the DOE. The complementary observations from the ESCAPE and TRACER field campaigns are expected to provide a rich dataset on the entire lifecycle of isolated convective cells and the controls of meteorology and aerosol conditions on their properties and evolution.