Airborne atmospheric measurements over Svalbard in March-April 2022

In March and April 2022, the sky will be busier than usual over and around Svalbard. No less than 3 different field programmes involving research aircraft will take to the skies for in-situ and remote-sensing measurements of atmospheric properties. For the research community in Ny-Ålesund, this can bring opportunities for coordination during the campaign periods, and for collaboration thereafter. 

• The ACAO campaign (PI Steven Abel, UK Metoffice) will study the aerosol, cloud and boundary layer evolution from the MIZ to Scandinavia during 9 to 31 March 2022, operating the FAAM BAe146 out of Kiruna. 
• The (AC)3 campaign (PI Manfred Wendisch, Uni Leipzig) will study the transformation of air masses as warm-air intrusions enter the Arctic, using 3 aircraft (HALO out of Kiruna, Polar 5/6 out of Longyearbyen) with an large suite of in-situ and remote sensing instrumentation from 5 March to 15 April 2022. In addition, from mid-March to mid-May, measurements of radiation, turbulence, and aerosols in the cloudy boundary layer from the tethered balloon BELUGA (PI Holger Siebert, TROPOS) based at AWIPEV in Ny-Ålesund, will bridge (AC)3 aircraft observations with ground- and remote-based observations. 
• The ISLAS campaign (PI Harald Sodemann, UiB), will characterize vertical airmass mixing and the efficiency of cloud processes during warm-air intrusions and cold-air outbreaks from in-situ water isotope measurements, in coordination with ground-based measurement networks. 

All three aircraft campaigns plan for quasi-Lagrangian flights as part of their activities, revising the same air masses several times to characterize their thermodynamic and microphysics evolution, and Ny-Ålesund will likely capture some of such airmass transformation events during this period.

If you are a researcher and see an opportunity for coordination and collaboration during this exceptional period next year, please be in contact with any of the PIs.