Flying Pole to Pole to Capture Global Picture of Atmosphere

Katy Human
NOAA Research, Earth Systems Research Laboratory

April 21, 2009 — NOAA scientists are going to new highs to measure greenhouse gases and other known atmospheric pollutants.

Two Earth System Research Laboratory scientists armed with five high-tech instruments took a roller-coaster tour of the planet in January, in a modified Gulfstream V jet known as HIAPER (High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research). The high-flying laboratory looped from the North Pole to the South Pole at speeds of more than 500 miles per hour.

The round-the-world flights are part of a new research program called HIPPO (short for HIAPER Pole-to-Pole Observation) — a multiagency, multiyear mission to paint a three-dimensional portrait of the atmosphere.

Detailed Data — From Very Thin Air

Initial results from HIPPO indicate that carbon dioxide and other pollutants are higher in concentration over the Arctic than many scientists expected, and more oxygen is piling up over the Southern Ocean.

Data gathering from the first 11 flights captured the most detailed measurements yet of greenhouse gases, ozone, particles, and other atmospheric constituents. This information is critical to both climate modelers seeking to understand the Earth and policymakers who rely on sound science for decision-making. 

During flight, HIAPER dipped within a few hundred feet of the ground and ocean, and then soared into the lower stratosphere, approximately 45,000 feet high. The January missions were spread out among seasons (winter in the Northern Hemisphere, summer in the south) and focused on areas that are not well sampled — especially the Southern Hemisphere and its oceans.

An early look at HIPPO data suggests great success, said Jim Elkins, a HIPPO co-investigator and scientist with ESRL’s Global Monitoring Division. “We got a cross-section of the atmosphere, up and down, from pole to pole — we’ve never done this before.”

Led by Harvard University’s Steve Wofsy, HIPPO is a joint venture of the National Science Foundation, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and NOAA ESRL (including the Boulder, Colo.-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences).

The January mission  — the first of five to take place over the next three years — was designed to research the relatively empty observation space between satellites and the ground-based instruments of ESRL’s Global Monitoring Division and other networks.

“We’re bridging that gap,” Elkins said. “We’ve had some flights over parts of North America, and some satellites give broad coverage of the stratosphere, but they can have trouble getting down into the troposphere.”
 
The stratosphere generally reaches from 5 or 10 miles above Earth's surface to about 30 miles high; the troposphere is lower and reaches only to about 5 or 10 miles altitude.

Fred Moore from ESRL’s Global Monitoring Division and Josh Schwarz from ESRL’s Chemical Sciences Division both flew on HIPPO. Schwarz was responsible for a soot particle photometer (SP2), which measures black carbon particles that can absorb solar radiation and warm the surrounding atmosphere.

“The datasets are stunning,” said David Fahey, a member of the HIPPO science team from ESRL’s Chemical Sciences Division.

“We’d really like to know more about the budgets of greenhouse gases and black carbon particles, the sources and sinks of these materials on the surface of the Earth, how they get into the atmosphere, and how they get moved around,” said Wofsy during a press conference.

A Lab With Quite a View

The scientists who flew on HIPPO said the first leg of the mission was challenging, as well as visually stunning.

“Flying in a small group of people to a string of remote locations gave me a strong sense of experiencing research as an explorer,” said ESRL’s Schwarz. “This was enhanced by the challenge of operating our instruments for many flights without a fixed base for repairs and supplies … I also was surprised by how fascinating I found the contrasts in sea surface color and cloud formations. Looking out the window with the sense of the whole world at our feet was endlessly interesting.”