Research Summaries

Back A Tethered Balloon-Based Sampling System for Research on Air-Sea Interaction and Marine Fog

Fiscal Year 2014
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Meteorology
Investigator(s) Wang, Qing
Sponsor Office of Naval Research (Navy)
Summary In many field campaigns involving air-sea interaction and boundary layer turbulence and clouds, measurements at high sampling rate for turbulent fluxes and cloud droplet distribution are limited to the heights of the land-based or ship-based towers with only occasional aircraft support. This poses severe limitations to the analyses of the air-sea interaction processes and their interaction with the deeper boundary layer. Here, I propose to acquire a tethered balloon-based boundary layer turbulence and cloud sampling system, the Aerostat High-Rate Atmospheric Measurement System (AHRAMS), in an attempt to overcome the aforementioned limitations in support of ongoing and future research projects related to air-sea interaction, boundary layer parameterization, and marine low-level cloud and fog. AHRAMS includes a large size aerostat with stable flight dynamics in high and variable winds, and utilizes a balloon launching system with small footprint. The instrument payload employs the latest sensor technology to include a combined sonic anemometer and gas analyzer for high frequency turbulence, virtual temperature, and water vapor measurements, sensors for motion correction and index of refraction, cloud droplet size distribution, along with tethersonde mean temperature, humidity, wind profiles at six levels below the balloon.
The tethered balloon-based system adds to our existing measurement capability of shipboard and buoy-based measurements by extending the flux measurements to several hundred meters at variable altitudes. Test flight data from the AHRAMS near the coast will be a great addition to support current ONR sponsored projects.
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Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal