Media Day Kicks Off Tropical Cloud Study in Australia

While on the ground, the Twin Otter (left) and Proteus (right) are sharing hangar space at the Royal Australian Air Force base for the duration of TWP-ICE field operations. ARM file photo.

Two days after a highly successful media day, January 21 marked the official start of flight operations for the Tropical Warm Pool International Cloud Experiment in Darwin, Australia. Science team members are guiding the aircraft missions from the Bureau of Meteorology’s Forecast Center in Darwin; the rest of the experiment activities are being managed from operations headquarters, located at Charles Darwin University. Each day involves monitoring the data being collected from the various ground sites and aircraft, a series of briefings to review current weather forecasts and the desired science goals, then a decision as to whether conditions are suitable for successful science flights. After just one week into the campaign, more than a dozen flights were completed among the five participating aircraft, including one day when all five aircraft flew at once.

Scientists involved in TWP-ICE are using sophisticated instrumentation on airplanes and on the surface of both land and sea in the region around Darwin to obtain measurements of tropical cirrus clouds, particularly in the anvil outflows resulting from tropical convective cloud systems. ARM file photo.

In early January, science team members began arriving in Darwin to make final preparations for the field campaign. ARM operations staff assisted the science team in setting up the radiometers and sounding stations at the various ground network sites situated in an approximate 200-km ring around the ARM site in Darwin. Scientists also assembled and tested the remote sensing instruments and lidars on board the Southern Surveyor research vessel in time to support a tour of the craft during the media day. The ship left the dock on January 20 and headed for a location about 60 miles offshore, in the Timor Sea, for the duration of the experiment. A fleet of five aircraft are involved in the experiment, taking measurements below, in and above the clouds, obtaining in situ measurements to compare with and complement the measurements obtained by ground instrumentation.

The media day included briefings by Australian officials and TWP-ICE science team members, followed by tours of the aircraft on base and the ship at Darwin Harbor. Attended by more than a dozen reporters, photographers, and film crews, plus a handful of documentary teams, the media day resulted in numerous news articles by Australian and European media. Australian radio programs will air updates every few days, and several of the documentary teams will remain on location for several days or weeks to provide more extended coverage of the complex field campaign. Additional reporters and film crews are expected to arrive throughout the experiment, which concludes on February 13.