The Aerosol Cloud Meteorology Interactions over the Western Atlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE): Concept and First Results

Abstract:

The Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) is a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-3 (EVS-3) investigation with 150 planned joint flights over multiple seasons between 2020 and 2022. ACTIVATE is motivated by the limitations in past campaigns focusing on aerosol-cloud-meteorology interactions associated with statistics, measurement ob­stacles, and regional characteristics. The investigation embraces an approach of using two closely coordinated aircraft (HU-25 and UC-12) with similar airspeeds for acquiring simultaneous, collocated in situ and remote sensing measurements that reduce sampling differences. The region sampled is the western North Atlantic Ocean (WNAO), which affords a wide range of aerosol and meteorological conditions, and subsequently diverse cloud types. The flight concept was successfully demonstrated with 22 research flights between 14 February and 12 March 2020 over the WNAO. The focus of the flights and data analysis is examining relationships between aerosol particles, cloud condensation nuclei, and cloud droplet number concentrations, in addition to understanding factors governing the formation and evolution of the region’s boundary layer clouds spanning the continuum from stratiform to cumulus clouds. Lastly, the flight data are being used to assess advanced remote sensing capabilities for retrieving aerosol and cloud properties related to aerosol-cloud interactions. This presentation will summarize ACTIVATE’s concept and provide initial results for the WNAO region based on flight data and supplementary datasets.