Unattended Atmospheric Measurement System

Marine regions are important to the climate but are highly under-sampled due to the expense of shipborne field campaigns. Deploying instruments on commercial ships provides a unique opportunity for expanding observations of marine regions but creates significant challenges for measurements. To further address these scientific challenges, data from high priority ship-borne field campaigns and long-term observations of atmospheric properties are needed to quantify atmospheric variables and study processes that are important to climate such as cloud, and precipitation formation; boundary layer processes that affect cloud formation and properties; and cloud-precipitation interactions and feedback. However, few existing commercial instruments are suitable for making unattended cloud or atmospheric state measurements on marine platforms. : Unattended Atmospheric Measurement System Helios Remote Sensing Systems is developing a low cost, low power, atmospheric measurement system which will serve as a core element of a modular unattended cloud, precipitation, and atmospheric measurement system for marine platforms. The heart of the atmospheric measurement system is a compact, low SWaP Doppler radar, operating at Ka-band, combined with a modified COTS Lidar subsystem that together provide marine-based cloud, precipitation, and atmospheric measurements. These sensors, plus additional future sensors, will be controlled by a modular Base Processing Unit, a software defined sensor processing system. During Phase I, Helios will (1) develop requirements in consultation with DOE scientists and engineers, and then (2) conduct functional analyses/trade studies/allocation studies, (3) synthesize alternative concepts, (4) conduct bench testing of critical technologies, and (5) determine the feasibility of our design to meet DOE requirements, including weight, power, cost, and measurement quality. During Phase II, we will complete the design, development, and test and demonstrate the system’s measurement capabilities in a marine environment. Anticipated public benefit from this effort includes the ability to: • Provide information on the background state of oceanic atmosphere and information on environmental variability within, near, and outside shipping lanes; • Enable statistical analysis and compositing of data (e.g., by meteorological conditions) for understanding environmental controls on different processes, as well as for validation of model simulations and testing of satellite-retrieval assumptions; • Fill critical observational gaps such as cloud base height and atmospheric properties under clouds that are unobtainable from satellites alone; and • Identify variability, phenomena, and processes that are not well captured in current models, which could lead to development of more targeted short-term research campaigns with advanced instrumentation to address these questions.