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Reed Espinosa

Publications and source records attributed to Reed Espinosa.

5 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The ACCP Inclined Orbit Project: Enabling New and Synergistic Aerosol Remote Sensing Inversions

Atmospheric aerosols have high spatiotemporal variations due to their diverse sources including windblown dust, wildfires, volcanic eruptions, and anthropogenic emissions. These aerosols also have strong diurnal emission characteristics that influence long-range transport, air quality, Earth’s radiation budget, biogeochemical cycles, and weather forecasting. While current sensors can measure the steady-state of global 3D cloud and aerosol properties, we lack the observational datasets to discover the diurnal variability of aerosols, even at seasonal and regional scales, because these missions utilize sun synchronous orbits. An Aerosols and Clouds, Convection and Precipitation (ACCP) observing system has been established as part of NASA’s new Earth System Observatory (ESO) to fulfill the science needs presented in the 2017 Earth Science Decadal Survey. The selected ACCP architecture encompasses sensors in two orbit planes, one of which utilizes an inclined orbit (nominally ~55 degrees at a 407 km altitude) to advance our understanding of aerosol and cloud properties and target the dynamics of the cloud and aerosol processes on sub-daily time scales. The anticipated instrumentation suite for the ACCP Inclined Orbit Project is a Stereo Camera System, Polarimeter, Microwave Radiometer, Two-Frequency Radar, and Backscatter Lidar. The polarimeter is expected to have multiple wavelength bands and viewing angles to enable accurate retrievals of aerosol microphysical and optical properties. The backscatter lidar will provide vertical profiles of attenuated backscatter and depolarization ratio at two wavelengths, with better daytime signal-to-noise ratio than previous space-based lidar systems to improve aerosol detection/typing and estimates of aerosol optical properties. The stereo camera system, while designed primarily for clouds, will also provide aerosol plume heights and air motions at the plume heights. This invited presentation will provide (1) an overview of the ACCP Inclined Orbit Project, (2) a description of the new sensor capabilities and orbital characteristics, and (3) a preview of the potential for new synergistic aerosol inversion techniques.

John E Yorks↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Tables of Aerosol Optics (TAO) Project

The Table of Aerosol Optics (TAO) project is a community repository of optics computations (extinction, absorption, single-scatter albedo, lidar ratio, etc) that are useful for global models and remote sensing applications. TAO expands upon historical efforts (e.g., Hess et al., 1998) by building an open database that uses recent measurements and new computational techniques for non-spherical particles. The ‘open’ aspect of TAO is important, since the size distributions, hygroscopicities, refractive indices, and morphological recommendations of today will undoubtedly yield to different values in the future; the open framework of TAO allows scientists to keep adding new computations to the database as the science evolves. TAO is meant to be a community repository where specialists can put their computations for other scientists to use. So for instance, some groups are advancing new techniques that can accommodate complex fractal aggregates of black carbon, other groups are working on realistic irregular shapes for mineral dust, and different groups are updating the hygroscopicity of various aerosol types using new techniques. The TAO database gives these scientists a place to distribute their products. As TAO grows, modelers and remote sensing specialists will look to TAO as a place to find a wide variety of choices for testing. Meanwhile, global modelers can also use TAO to lobby for new tables that accommodate their needs. Eventually, TAO will provide mass extinction coefficients, mass absorption coefficients, lidar ratios, etc., at popular remote sensing and global modeling wavelengths (0.25-40 µm) for all pertinent species (sulfate, sea salt, BC, OC, BrC, dust, etc.). TAO will also accept computations for aerosol ‘type’ (e.g., biomass burning, urban, background, etc.) that may include regional and seasonal variability. Multiple tables may be created for each species or type to account for the multiple valid size distributions, hygroscopicities, complex refractive indices, and shapes that can be found in the literature.

Greg Schuster↗