NCAR Scientists, Aircraft, Instruments Head To Indian Ocean For Climate ChangeExperiment; UCAR Directs ...( elago runs in a north-south line from a...)

elago runs in a north-south line from about 500 miles southwest of the tip of the Indian subcontinent to the equator. The personnel and observing systems are spread across several islands, with all transport by boat. Resources include five aircraft, two research ships, and a host of ground-based systems. Satellite data will be used for real-time weather forecasting, monitoring the motion of pollutants, and measuring radiation at different altitudes. This combination of ground, airborne, and satellite data is expected to vastly increase scientists' understanding of the nature and scope of aerosols' indirect effects.

Heymsfield and NCAR colleague Gregory McFarquhar are studying some of the cloud microphysical changes using a scanning aerosol backscatter lidar, developed at NCAR and mounted on the C-130. From the aircraft the lidar can characterize cloud top and bottom. The scientists will observe the optical depth of clouds in both clear and cloudy aerosol-laden skies.

"The government of the Maldives has been extraordinarily cooperative and accommodating," says Dirks. "They're deeply concerned with climate change research." The Maldives islands are vulnerable to rising sea levels due to climate change.

INDOEX is coordinated by the Center for Clouds, Chemistry and Climate (C4), an NSF Science and Technology Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Paul J. Crutzen, director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and a 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, and C4 director V. Ramanathan will serve as INDOEX chief scientists.

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Contact: Anatta
anatta@ucar.edu
303-497-8604
National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
4-Mar-1999

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