NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

ULH measures water vapor at high accuracy in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere to meet the following science objectives:

1. validation and scientific collaboration with NASA earth-monitoring satellite missions, principally the Aura satellite, http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/

2. observations of stratospheric trace gases in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere from the mid-latitudes into the tropics,

3. sampling of polar stratospheric air and the break-up fragments of the air that move into the mid-latitudes, The ULH flights on Global Hawk will advance the state of the art technologically with remote command and control. ULH will provide real-time in-situ stratospheric water vapor measurements from Global Hawk. Additionally, ULH will make continuous measurements during long-duration flights up to 33 hours, which would be impossible with manned aircraft.

The advantages of ULH over other hygrometers are:

• Small and lightweight instrument package,
• No outgassing (achieved by mounting the open-path optical cell in the free air stream),
• Fast time response measurements in and out of clouds, without contamination,
• Accurate with a low detection limit <1 ppmv.

The SP2 is a laser-induced incandescence instrument primarily used for measuring the refractory BC  (rBC) mass content of individual accumulation-mode aerosol particles. It is able to provide this data product independently of the total particle morphology and mixing state, and thus delivers detailed information not only about BC loadings, but also size distributions, even in exceptionally clean air. The instrument can also provide the optical size of individual particles containing rBC, and identify the presence of materials associated with the BC fraction (i.e. identify the rBC’s mixing state). Since its introduction in 2003, the SP2 has been substantially improved, and now can be considered a highly competent instrument for assessing BC loadings and mixing state in situ.  NOAA deploys multiple SP2s with different designs: the first was built for the WB-57F research aircraft. Two others are rack-mounted units customized at NOAA; one of the rack mounted units can be humidified, and has been deployed with a paired dry rack-mounted SP2 as the "Humidified-Dual SP2" (HD-SP2). The rack mounted units are suitable for in-cabin operations.

The VIPS is an electro-optical instrument used to collect and record a continuous sample of cloud particles down to 5 um. Particles are collected continuously on a looped belt coated with silicone oil. The portion of the belt exposed to the airstream is imaged by two very high resolution charged coupled device (CCD) shuttered video cameras with different resolutions. The resulting imagery is available for real-time, in-flight evaluation of cloud conditions and for post-flight habit classification and spectra analysis.

The VIPS system is composed of two parts: (1) an electro-optical collection and imaging unit mounted in a standard particle measurement system (PMS) can, and (2) data acquisition and recording components. Aperture width of the collection subassembly is adjustable for varying flight conditions. The CCD imaging cameras are coupled with inline, high detail video enhancers. Particle imagery is recorded continuously at 30 Hz on high-resolution Hi-8 VCRs. Images are also captured at 1 Hz, digitized in real-time and recorded on an Apple PowerPC.

The NOAA PALMS instrument measures single-particle aerosol composition using UV laser ablation to generate ions that are analyzed with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer.  The PALMS size range is approximately 150 to >3000 nm and encompasses most of the accumulation and coarse mode aerosol volume. Individual aerosol particles are classified into compositional classes.  The size-dependent composition data is combined with aerosol counting instruments from Aerosol Microphysical Properties (AMP), the Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment (LARGE), and other groups to generate quantitative, composition-resolved aerosol concentrations.  Background tropospheric concentrations of climate-relevant aerosol including mineral dust, sea salt, and biomass burning particles are the primary foci for the ATom campaigns.  PALMS also provides a variety of compositional tracers to identify aerosol sources, probe mixing state, track particle aging, and investigate convective transport and cloud processing.

*_Standard data products_**: *

Particle type number fractions: sulfate/organic/nitrate mixtures, biomass burning, EC, sea salt, mineral dust, meteoric, alkali salts, heavy fuel combustion, and other. Sampling times range from 1-5 mins.

*_Advanced data products_**:*

Number, surface area, volume, and mass concentrations of the above particle types. Total sulfate and organic mass concentrations. Relative and absolute abundance of various chemical markers and aerosol sub-components: methanesulfonic acid, sulfate acidity, organic oxidation level, iodine, bromine, organosulfates, pyridine, and other species.