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NASA Future Suborbital Activities MeetingVirginia Beach, VAMarch 8-9, 2007

Future Stratosphere/Troposphere Research with Suborbital Platforms

David FaheyNOAA Earth System Research Laboratory

Boulder, CO

and

Elliot WeinstockThomas Hanisco

Harvard UniversityCambridge, MA

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How will UT/S ozone and surface UV respond to climate

variability and change?

Future UT/S ozone amounts are the bellwether of

UT/S climate change. Developing skill for ozone

changes will require understanding of a broad range

of processes.

Major science question

Unifying theme for UT/S measurementsfrom orbital and suborbital platforms

Unifying theme for 2-D, CTM and CCM modeling efforts

Stratosphere/Troposphere Research with Suborbital Platforms

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NASA Future Suborbital Activities Meeting, VA Beach, March 2007

How will UT/S ozone and surface UV respond to climate variability and change? Research topics: • Ozone radiative forcing and sensitivity • Future UT/S ozone distribution

- Temp erature - Humidity - Convection and lightning - Pollution: NOx and VOCs - Photochemistry and transport - Strat-trop exchange

• Microphysical and chemical properties of aerosols Black carbon Sulfate aerosol and new particle formation

• Water vapor and relative humidity distributions

- Transport and dynamics - Trends in water vapor, tropopause height and temperature - Cloud formation processes

• TTL ozone photochemistry • UV dosage forecast

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Figure SPM-2

IPCC Summary for Policymakers, AR4, 2007.

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Ozone Radiative Heating and Climate Change Sensitivity

Portmann et al., GRL, 2007

Forster and Shine, JGR, 1997

10 DU/km change 10%/km change

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Figure 1. Annual and zonal mean distribution of O3 for 2000 (a); annual and zonal mean changes in O3 (b) between 2000 and 2100 without climate change (B–A); (c) between 2000 and 2100 with a double CO2 climate (C–A); and (d) between 2100 and 2100 with a double CO2 climate (C–B). Units in ppbv. Thick line shown is the contour of 150 ppbv O3, a conventional measure of the chemical tropopause.

Zeng and Pyle GRL 2003.

Trends in Future Ozone Amounts

Year 2000 ozone values (ppbv)

Year 2100-2000 ozone values (ppbv)- x 2 CO2- STE increases by 80%- PO3 increased by 25% in troposphere

7Tropopause height above all 11 million NLDN cloud-to-ground lightning flashes during July, 2006

Two recent studies have demonstrated through measurements and modeling that an upper tropospheric ozone maximum exists above the southern USA during summer.

Anthropogenic emissions and subsequent free tropospheric ozone production are partly responsible.

However most of the enhancement is due to ozone production from lightning NOx emissions that overwhelmingly dominate the upper tropospheric NOx budget in summer.

Li et al. (2005), North American pollution outflow and the trapping of convectively lifted pollution by upper-level anticyclone, JGR

Cooper et al. (2006), Large upper tropospheric ozone enhancements above midlatitude North America during summer, JGR

ECMWF tropopause height, 00 UTC July 10, 2006, with NLDN lightning flashes overlain. Histogram shows tropopause height above the flashes.

Average ozone within the troposphere at 10-11 km, August, 2006, contoured from daily IONS ozonesonde measurements.

Owen Cooper, 2007

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Glory Satellite: Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor Total Irradiance Monitor(Scheduled for 2008)

Orbital and Suborbital Platforms

WB-57FDC-8ER-2P3G-VsUAS

9Earth Science Applications from Space, NRC, 2007

Table 9.2 Status of major climate variables and forcing factors

• Total solar irradiance• Earth radiation budget• Surface radiation budget• Tropospheric aerosols• Stratospheric aerosols

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• Cloud properties• Ozone: strat and trop• Trace gases controlling ozone• CO2• CH4

Table 9.2 Status of major climate variables and forcing factors

Earth Science Applications from Space, NRC, 2007

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Science priorities driven by societal needs

• Human health• Climate and its

coupling to chemistry, radiation and dynamics

• Water resources• Weather and severe

storms• Solid Earth hazards• Land use,

Ecosystems,

• Airborne and water borne toxicity

• UV dosage levels• Optical properties of

the atmosphere and link to climate

• Regional temperatures, hurricane intensity, optical properties of atmosphere

• Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis

• Isotopes, radicals, reactive intermediates

• Nitrate, sulfate, organics, heavy metal effluents globally

• Cloud properties, aerosol composition, size, surface properties

Decision Structures in Service to Society

for:

Required Forecasts:Critical Observations to Specifically Test Forecast Credibility

Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond, National Research Council, 2007

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Mechanisms describing the exchange between the troposphere and stratosphere must be quantified using a combination of isotopes, long-lived tracers, and reactive intermediates.

Transport and dynamics of water vapor and trace species

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Stratospheric water vapor

How will the irreversible flux of water vapor into the stratosphere change given increased forcing of the climate system by CO2, CH4, etc?

To what degree is stratospheric water influenced by tropopause temperatures and by deep convection?What controls the relative humidity at which ice particles form, grow, and are maintained?How do these processes influence stratospheric water and cloud radiative properties?

Discrepancies between in situ, frost point, and remote observations must be resolved.

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The role of convective injection of short-lived compounds through the tropical tropopause and at midlatitude continental sites must be established.

TTL photochemistry

What short-lived trace species are convected to the TTL?H2COH2O2

(CH3)2COPANPNACH3BrCH3I…? Wennberg et al., 1998

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Catalytic destruction of ozone under conditions of low temperature and elevated water vapor by halogen radicals must be determined by observing the ClO, BrO and IO concentrations in the lower stratosphere in the presence of elevated water vapor concentrations. 

UV dosage forecast

An

nu

al m

ea

n O

3 a

no

ma

ly (

%)

WMO, 2006

Salawitch, et al., (2005), GRL

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Recommended Satellite Observations:Collaborative science requires a sophisticated airborne

payload

Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond, National Research Council, 2007