Today is a hard down day, long due after intense work around the aircraft and the two flights of yesterday. Things are definitely getting dirtier, and we started observing a decent amount of aerosols all along our flight trajectories. I stitched this panorama of the McClellan airfield in between the two flights (2: 15 pm […]
There’s nothing special about Sacramento’s urban emissions per se, other than being very typical emissions from a city. So why was the campaign designed to take place here? The thing is that this region has a very well defined circulation pattern, which makes the plume transport very regular. Southwesterly winds mix two airflows in the […]
Flight baptism
Normally, flight patterns are designed and effectuated based upon good scientific conditions. We must rely on the expertise of meteorologists who tell us if we are likely to fly with favorable weather. Instruments being all “go” is another fundamentally important factor (the first day we were grounded by power problems to one of the aircraft). In […]
Arriving at McClellan
We — the scientists taking part in the Carbonaceous and Aerosol Radiative Effects Study (CARES), a field campaign to California that’s all about aerosols – do, that’s who. Walk outside, lift your eyes and look: what do you see? If you’re lucky, not much more than a beautiful blue sky. More likely, though, you’ll be […]
From GloPac co-mission scientist Paul Newman: It was a tense moment on Friday morning, April 2. The Global Hawk was poised on the end of the runway, with the crew chief behind it in a pick-up truck (“the trapper” is the runway-based eyes and ears for the crew in the control room). Pilots, managers, and […]
Our project took a major step forward in 2010, although the work we accomplished was completed far from the Pine Island area.
As you can tell, the coffee on Thursday was over-caffeinated.
I don't want to hear anything about holes in the plane. It pains me!
