DCOTSS Second Deployment Announcement

June 9, 2022, 11:33 a.m.

Project: DCOTSS

The Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere (DCOTSS) field campaign returned to operations for in May 2022 for the second of two scheduled deployments. DCOTSS is a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital research project that seeks to expand knowledge of how convective storms can impact stratospheric composition, which has a large impact on climate. The stratosphere is an upper atmospheric layer that overlays the troposphere – the lowest atmospheric layer that contains the most weather on the Earth. Compared to the troposphere, the stratosphere is more stable due to air temperature increases with altitude. This causes transport from the overlain troposphere to require substantial energy. Strong updrafts within intense thunderstorms are known to be able to penetrate at least several kilometers into the stratosphere.

DCOTSS is led by principal investigator Dr. Ken Bowman of Texas A&M University and consists of scientists from NASA, NCAR, NOAA, Harvard University, the University of Miami, the University of Maryland, Texas A&M University, the University of North Dakota, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The DCOTSS science team has devised a sampling strategy that incorporates high flying aircraft, a surface radar network, and satellite observations. The strategy for the second deployment will be similar to that of the first deployment. In this deployment, DCOTSS will primarily focus on the pattern of circulation above central North America called the North American Monsoon Anticyclone (NAMA) which can be readily identified by the NEXRAD surface radar network and satellite imagery. The NASA ER-2 aircraft will fly through the lower stratosphere to target the outflow of the thunderstorm systems and investigate the impact on the water vapor abundance and chemical processes related to ozone and aerosol. The ER-2 in-situ instrument payload was designed to enable comprehensive characterization of meteorological parameters, halocarbon and hydrocarbon, ozone, aerosol loading and composition, CO, CO2, CH4, N2O, water vapor and water vapor isotopic ratios. The in-situ measurements of DCOTSS are complemented by satellite data products such as Aura-MLS, ACE-FTS, and GOES, as well as operational modeling products, including TRAJ3D, NASA GMAO, and NOAA GFS. Science flights will be conducted primarily out of Salina, KS with a few science flights deploying out of Palmdale, CA at the end of the deployment.

So far, DCOTSS has conducted 11 science flights as part of the first deployment. Ingest, archive, and distribution of all available publication-quality data is ongoing. Currently available DCOTSS data products can be found at: https://asdc.larc.nasa.gov/project/DCOTSS and https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search?fpj=DCOTSS. Additional information about DCOTSS is available on the DCOTSS science website.


Related URLS: https://dcotss.org/