Too low, terrain!

Cockpit of a NOAA P3.

oldWeather is telling us a great deal about how the present climate is different from that of 100 years ago, but to make maximum use of that information, we also want to know exactly how the present climate is behaving. This will help us link our observed changes in surface weather to the basic physics of the ocean and atmosphere. To learn about the present climate we collect a rich and detailed set of observations from research ships, aircraft, and satellites.

Last year, Kevin was out making such measurements from a ship, on a research cruise in the Bering Strait. This field season he’s back out there, but he’s gone up in the world. For some purposes ground level is too low, and satellites are too high, and to fill this gap NOAA have two research aircraft (affectionally known as ‘Kermit’ and ‘Miss Piggy’). Kevin’s group have got some time on one of them, they are trying to “quantify the air-ice-sea interactions and lower atmospheric structure in the marginal ice zone, with the ultimate goal of being able to infer how recent reductions in sea ice extent in autumn will impact the atmosphere“.

The research aircraft is complex and well-equipped: According to Kevin “The NOAA WP-3 is instrumented like ten satellites. So we are able to collect a vast array of data from deep oceanography with AXCTD and AXBT expendables, SST and surface microwave emission (wind/waves/ice), upward/downward radiation, up to 22 thousand feet where we deploy dropsondes from above the clouds to characterize the structure of the atmosphere. On a survey we collect flight level data continuously while deploying AX instruments about every six minutes.”

To do all that effectively requires close cooperation between the crew of the aircraft and the scientists – that’s Kevin’s job. He’s sent back this video to give us a taste of what it’s like. It looks exciting – they spend a lot of time travelling at 200 knots, only 200 feet off the ground, much to the distress of the auto-pilot – but it’s hard work: one flight means 8-10 hours flight time + 2 hours for briefings before and after.

See more about this mission on the NOAA website.