Flight Report September 09, 2014 Summary

Transcription

1 Flight Report September 09, 2014 Summary 1. HALO Flight Report - AC Flight Strategy Weather Conditions Before the Flight Conditions During the Flight... 5

2 1. HALO Flight Report - AC Flight Strategy Today s flight had focus on inter-comparison between HALO, G-1 and the CHUVA s X-band radar over Manacapurú. Both airplanes realized several slices over T3, capturing atmospheric characteristics inside the radar coverage. A special strategy will be applied to the radar, which will perform several vertical range-height indicators (RHI) following the airplanes tracks. One of the objectives is to validate the remote sensing capability of the radar, through comparison with in-situ data. The took off occurred at 15:05 UTC (11:05 local time) and landing at 20:19 UTC (16:19 local time). Figure Flight path of HALO aircraft in September 09, 2014 (AC08). The green circle represents range rings of distance from X-Band radar. The maximum horizontal distance of HALO aircraft from radar was 76 km. Source: 2

3 1.2 Weather Conditions Before the Flight Figure 1.2 shows the general weather conditions at 13:00 UTC (9 hours in local time), approximately two hours before HALO and G-1 took off. To the east of Manaus, fair weather cumulus was predominant. Some deeper clouds were observed to the Northwest of Manaus, however outside the reach of the X-band radar. Those systems were moving in the general direction of West, slightly to the South. Figure General weather conditions for 09:00 UTC, two hours before HALO (AC08) and G-1 departures. Red dots are fire spots, green lines are radars coverage. Satellite image is from the visible channel of GOES-13. Source: 3

4 The Fig.1.3 shows the radiosonde data (a) Skew-T and (b) balloon trajectory for the T3 site at 14:28 UTC (10:28 in local time, some minutes before the flight). It is suggested a dry environmental between 400 and 200 mb and an wet layer between surface and 600 mb. The wind registered was around 10 m/s in lower levels, with no significant wind shear. The balloon trajectory show the wind was from east to west. (a) (b) Figure Data from T3 site radiosonde in September 09, 2014 at 14:28 UTC. (a) Skew- T and (b) Balloon trajectory. Source: 4

5 1.3 Conditions During the Flight Right after departure, both airplanes started the legs over T3 at Manacapurú, while the radar started providing RHI fields. Figure 1.4 shows that few clouds were visible by GOES-13, coherent with isolated fair weather cumulus conditions. The SIPAM S-band radar observed no rain. Figure Conditions near the airport close to departure time. Green lines indicate the X-band radar reach. Satellite image is from GOES-13 visible channel. Source: As the flight progressed, the clouds developed until rain was observed close to Manacapurú at 18:24 UTC (Figure 1.5a). After three straight legs over T3 (Manacapurú), HALO started circulating in a Northwest-Southeast orientation repetitively crossing both Solimões and Negro rivers. Figure 1.5b shows that approximately at 19:12 UTC HALO was close to the precipitating system over the T3 instrumentation. After that, HALO persisted close to this system, collecting data useful for comparisons also with the ground-based information. 5

6 a) b) Figure GOES-13 visible image and radar reflectivity at a) 18:24 UTC and b) 19:12 UTC. Note: the green lines are the reach of the X-band radar, but the reflectivity field is from SIPAM s S-band radar as the former was producing the RHIs. Source: The Fig. 1.6 shows images in visible channel from GOES-13 from 13 to 21 UTC. At 13:30 UTC was observed clouds covering Manaus, with the strongest one occurring in the northwest of amazon region. During the afternoon (after 19:30 UTC) several deep clouds with temperature around -60 o C appeared. After the HALO flight (after 21:00 UTC) some clouds around Manaus city yet was observed. 6

7 Figure Visible image from GOES-13 satellite from 13 to 21 UTC in September 09, The Fig. 1.7 shows the reflectivity (dbz) from Manaus radar from 12 UTC to 22:00 UTC. Some precipitation cells were observed just after 16:00 UTC (in consistency with satellite images) around the Manaus city. However the strongest precipitation cells appeared close to 18 UTC, with maximum reflectivity around 35 dbz. 7

8 Figure Reflectivity (dbz) from Manaus radar from 12 to 2200 UTC in September 09,

9 The Fig. 1.8 shows the PPI reflectivity (upper figure) at Manacapuru site 18:58 UTC from X-Band radar. In addition to SIPAM radar, the X-Band showed the presence just of small precipitation cells to radar. The cloud top those clouds was close to 6 km, with supercooled water until 4 km (stronger positive ZDR), as showed by RHIs figures (the lower figures). Figure The upper figure is the PPI Reflectivity (dbz) and the lower figures are the RHI of horizontal reflectivity (Z h, dbz), differential reflectivity (Z dr, db) and specific differential phase (K dp, km -1 ) from X-band radar at 18:58 UTC in September 09,

10 The Figs. 1.9 shows some photos showing the HALO and G1 passing above the T3 radar site (upper figure), the middle photo shows picture from HALO of G1 and the lower is the picture from HALO showing some clouds. Figure The upper photo shows the HALO and G1 passing above the T3 radar site, the middle photo shows picture from HALO of G1 and the lower is the picture from HALO showing some clouds. Courtesy from Vagner Castro/Rachel Albrecht. 10

11 Flight Summary: HALO-Campaign ACRIDICON-CHUVA Flight number: AC08 Date, base: (Tuesday), SBEG Block/TO/LDG/Block/FH:????/1505/2019/????Z /5:40 (may not be exact) Mission type: Formation test flight, cloud profiling Flight pattern: Flight pattern #13, with formation flight with G1 at lower levels (1500ft), and cloud profiling at stepped levels (4000, 5000, 8000, 9000, 10000, 12000, 14000, 18000, 16000, 14000, ft), going back and forth around B55a and B54a. Participants: Aircrew: Pilot: Michael Grossrubatscher Co-Pilot: Steffen Gemser Technician: Thomas Lederer Scientists: Rachel Albrecht (Mission PI), Daniel Sauer, Stephan Mertes, Benhard Bucholz, Thomas Klimach Observer: Ten. Mendes FL430 FL180 FL160 FL140 FL ft 9000ft 8000ft 5000ft 4000ft 1500ft SBEGB55a T3- B54a

12 Instrument status: Radiati on EAGLE/HAWK: HAI: minidoas: SMART: SNOOPY: Ok Ok Ok Shatter problems, after small push it worked, IMAR with warning, seems ok, Ok PMS CAS-DPOL: CCP: MTP: NIXE-CAPS: PHIPS: PCASP-100X: PIP: SID-3: UHSAS-A: Ok, hot wire operational Ok Ok, turned on after low legs, had to be turned of in between again, then worked fine Mostly Ok, some warnings to be checked, nothing series Not operated Ok Ok Ok, turned on after take-off Ok Gas ALABAMA- NOy: PAN-MS: AMTEX: TDS: Not operated Not operated Ozone ok, the rest could not be operated Not operated

13 Aerosol C-ToF-AMS: CVI-Rack: CCN: AMETYST: FINCH: Ok, was switched several times to CVI, several cloud penetrations Ok, optimum was only slightly changed, electrometer during lower levels Ok, might not be affected by the anisokinetic HASI issue, so far so good Problems with flow control after HASI inlet, probably not isokinetic inlet flows, might affect all instruments behind HASI, first three hours of flight affected Pump switched on during lowest level, okay all the time, was connected to CVI during one time period BAHAMAS: Front-facing camera SatCom: Ok, time shifts (16 seconds to UTC) have been corrected, we refer to UTC from the time server (system time), check, if you don t have the UTC it needs to be corrected for past flights, final Bahama file contains real UTC Pilots camera was on until battery died Ok, with some interruptions Flight remarks: 1505Z: Take off 1533Z: Flight formation with (may not be exact) Cloud base at approx. 2500ft 1615Z: Hit 1 st cloud (MD=10 m), and other (may not be exact) 1618Z: Up to 3500ft 1620Z: Up to 4000ft During 4000 ft level de-icing was switched on and off, should be repeated during next flight with the same cloud 1623Z: Hit 16:28Z: Hit (MD=5-7 m, T=20oC) (only shallow clouds seen from window) Z: Hit (MD= m) Z: No clouds, MTP on Z: Hit clouds, some with rain (MD=10 m) 1654Z: lateral cloud scan with minidoas Z: Hit clouds, some with rain (MD=15 m, T=13oC)

14 (T=11oC) 1731Z: Hit cloud w/ rain (MD=16 m) (~200ftp below cloud top) : Hit clouds 1740Z: MTP off hit several clouds, some w/ rain (MD=18 m) Hit clouds, some with rain and ice (??) (MD=18 m, T=7oC) (T=5oC) 1816Z: Hit cloud, right at its top, no ice (MD=45 m???) (estimated cloud tops are 14000ft, but there was higher t-storm clouds in the area) 1820Z: climbing up to FL430 (T=-62oC) (probably above t-storms) 1903Z: descending to FL180, hit outflow (cloud at south-most point) 1909Z: FL340 (T=-49oC) 1914Z: FL300 (T=-28oC) (T=-13oC) no clouds to penetrate, only t-storms 1926Z: FL170 (T=-7oC) (T=0oC) 1932Z: Hit cloud with rain (MD=35-45 m) 1940Z: Hit cloud with rain (MD=25 m) 1942Z: Descending tofl140, hit same cloud with rain (MD=20 m, T=5oC) hit cloud with rain (MD=17 m, T=9oC) Z: Hit clouds (MD=15 m) 1958Z: start descending for landing 2019Z: Landed

15 Flight track (background=manaus radar at 2000Z) GOES-13 VIS at 1900Z

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