Steve
Jones of Aerodyne received a One NASA Peer Award on May 16, 2005 for his
role in developing the Hyperspectral Polarimeter for Aerosol Retrievals
(HySPAR). This award is given in recognition by one’s peers for focusing
on producing the best product and best science rather than on individual
of Center concerns, thereby, working together in advancing scientific
understanding through collaboration of unique talents resident at
several NASA Centers in developing an active-passive airborne instrument
suite for aerosol measurements. HySPAR is one of the three
instruments in this suite to be used for characterizing aerosol
distributions and optical properties. The other two instruments,
designed by
NASA
Langley Research Center, are the High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL)
and the Langley Airborne A-band Spectrometer (LAABS).
Accurate aerosol measurements are required for understanding shortwave
radiative transfer. Aerosols affect the Earth’s climate through two
fundamentally different interactions: by scattering and absorbing solar
radiation (the direct effect), and by altering the lifetime and
development of clouds, which in turn affect the scattering and
absorption of radiation (the indirect effect). Because of their short
lifetime in the troposphere, aerosols have large spatial and temporal
variabilities so that it is very difficult to accurately assess their
direct and indirect effects. These variabilities, along with
uncertainties in their physical and optical characteristics, make the
effect of aerosols one of the largest single uncertainties in computing
the net radiative forcing due to anthropogenic changes in the chemical
composition of the atmosphere.
Preliminary flight testing of the sensor suite will
commence in mid-summer 2005 with subsequent flights planned for
validation of the
CALIPSO
spacecraft after its launch in September 2005. The initial platform for
the measurements will be a Lear 25C specially equipped with two nadir
window ports.
