TAMU TRACER: Targeted Mobile Measurements to Isolate the Impacts of Aerosols and Meteorology on Deep Convection

Journal Article · Fri Jul 12 04:00:00 EDT 2024 · Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1175/bams-d-23-0218.1· OSTI ID:2403094

Rapp, Anita D. ^[1]; Brooks, Sarah D. ^[1]; Nowotarski, Christopher J. ^[1]; Sharma, Milind ^[1]; Thompson, Seth A. ^[1]; Chen, Bo ^[1]; Matthews, Brianna H. ^[2]; Etten-Bohm, Montana ^[3]; Nielsen, Erik R. ^[1]; Li, Ron ^[1]

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1. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States)
2. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States); Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), Aiken, SC (United States)
3. Texas A & M Univ., College Station, TX (United States); Univ. of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND (United States)

Difficulty in using observations to isolate the impacts of aerosols from meteorology on deep convection often stems from inability to resolve the spatiotemporal variations in the environment serving as the storm’s inflow region. During the DOE TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) in June-September 2022, a Texas A&M University (TAMU) team conducted a mobile field campaign to characterize the meteorological and aerosol variability in airmasses that serve as inflow to convection across the ubiquitous mesoscale boundaries associated with the sea- and bay-breezes in the Houston, Texas, region. These boundaries propagate inland over the fixed DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) sites. However, convection occurs on either or both the continental or maritime sides or along the boundary. The maritime and continental airmasses serving as convection inflow may be quite distinct, with different meteorological and aerosol characteristics that fixed-site measurements cannot simultaneously sample. Thus, a primary objective of TAMU TRACER was to provide mobile measurements similar to those at the fixed sites, but in the opposite airmass across these moving mesoscale boundaries. TAMU TRACER collected radiosonde, lidar, aerosol, cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and ice nucleating particle (INP) measurements on 29 enhanced operations days covering a variety of maritime, continental, outflow, and pre-frontal airmasses. This paper summarizes the TAMU TRACER deployment and measurement strategy, instruments, available datasets, and provides sample cases highlighting differences between these mobile measurements and those made at the ARM sites. We also highlight the exceptional TAMU TRACER undergraduate student participation in high impact learning activities through forecasting and field deployment opportunities.

• Research Organization: ARM Data Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)
• Contributing Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL); Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0021047
• OSTI ID: 2403094
• Journal Information: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Journal Name: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 105; ISSN 0003-0007
• Publisher: American Meteorological Society
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES