A
Horizon Lines container ship outfitted with meteorological and atmospheric
instruments installed by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) scientists from
Argonne National Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory will begin
taking data today (October 1, 2012) for a yearlong mission aimed at improving
the representation of clouds in climate models.
The
study, a collaborative effort between DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM)
program Climate Research Facility and Horizon Lines, marks the first official
marine deployment of the second ARM Mobile Facility (AMF2) and is likely the
most elaborate climate study ever mounted aboard a commercial vessel.
“We
are very grateful to Horizon Lines for giving us the opportunity to install our
research equipment aboard the Horizon Spirit,”
says lead investigator Ernie Lewis, an atmospheric scientist at DOE’s
Brookhaven National Laboratory. The Horizon Spirit
makes a roundtrip journey from Los Angeles to Hawaii every two weeks, which
allows for repeated measurements over the same transect at different seasons.
“Collecting
data on a wide range of atmospheric conditions over an entire year, including
the transitions among cloud types along this particular route, will give us a
large amount of data to help refine and validate models of Earth’s climate,”
Lewis says.
The
project—dubbed MAGIC, for the Marine ARM GPCI Investigation of Clouds, where
GPCI is a project comparing results from the major climate models—will take
place through September 2013.
“We
are excited to deploy the AMF2 sensors and the infrastructure that supports
them on the Horizon Spirit.
This represents the culmination of four years of hard work in designing,
building and preparing to deploy aboard an ocean going vessel,” says AMF2
Technical Operations Manager Michael Ritsche, an atmospheric scientist at DOE’s
Argonne National Laboratory.
Clouds and climate
Low marine boundary layer clouds over the ocean exert a large influence on
Earth’s climate through reflection of sunlight and by mediating interactions
between the atmosphere and the ocean, Lewis explains. However, global climate
models have difficulty accurately representing these clouds and the transitions
among their different types. Extensive data collection from a marine
environment with variable cloud cover could significantly improve these models.
Horizon
Spirit’s route
crosses just such a region, making it ideal for assessing the effects of
changing cloud conditions. This region is important to a wide range of climate
models included in the GPCI project.
“Horizon
Spirit’s route from
Los Angeles to Honolulu lies almost on top of the GPCI line, providing a great opportunity
for extensive data collection,” says Lewis. “We approached Horizon about
working together on this project with the idea that our equipment could be
installed on the ship with no disruption of their ordinary operations.”
“Horizon
Lines is happy to cooperate in the year-long MAGIC project to improve climate
modeling,” says Pete Strohla, vice president of operating services at Horizon
Lines. “Our hope is that better understanding of climate change will facilitate
more accurate weather forecasting, which in turn will help our industry plan
safer and more fuel-efficient vessel routes.”
A
group from Argonne in charge of the deployment has spent the past nine months
preparing the instruments and optimizing their performance for shipboard data
collection. Many instruments, including an aerosol observing system developed
by Brookhaven scientists, are housed in three modified 20-ft SeaTainer cargo
containers designed for mobile deployment. Other instruments include radars
that are mounted to tables designed to maintain stable “vision” despite the
inherent rolling of the ship’s deck as it plies the waves. All of these
instruments were installed aboard the Horizon Spirit while it
was in port in Los Angeles in September, with final preparations made while en route
to Hawaii and back.
“Altogether,
the AMF2 comprises a suite of instruments to measure properties of clouds and
precipitation, aerosols, and infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light, as well
as meteorological and oceanographic conditions,” Lewis says. “These ship-based
measurements can provide much more detailed information than can be determined
from satellites, and these data will prove a valuable addition to other
measurements that have been made in marine conditions, albeit for much shorter
periods, for many of these quantities.”
The
science team—which includes researchers from DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in addition to Brookhaven, as well as collaborators from NASA, Stony
Brook University, and a range of other universities and private consultants—is
anxiously anticipating the data that will arise from this endeavor.
“In
the end, these data will greatly enhance our understanding of clouds, aerosols,
Earth’s energy and water balance and the interactions among them in the marine
environment, providing an unequalled data set for evaluating and improving climate
models,” Lewis says. “Our data, which will be placed in the ARM Data
Archive, will be made available to anyone who is interested.”
Source: Argonne National Laboratory
