Three ESRL/GMD scientists (Jim Elkins, Brad Hall, Sam Oltmans) and five ESRL Cooperative Institute in Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) affiliates (Geoff Dutton, Dale Hurst, Fred Moore, David Nance, Brian Vasel) are providing key gas measuring instrumentation and flight support for the NASA-US Department of Agriculture Forest Service Altair Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Fire Mission. The Fire Mission is using the unmanned long endurance (24 hours plus) and high altitude capabilities (13 km, 43,000 ft.) of the Altair to fly over large regions of the Western U.S. to locate forest fires quickly and accurately with infrared sensors and gas measurements. Pin-pointing hot spots allows for more efficient use of limited fire-fighting resources during the peak forest fire season. The Altair program runs from 15 August to 30 September from an operations base in Gray Butte, California and will fly over the forested areas of Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
Background:
The ESRL Unmanned aircraft systems Chromatograph for Atmospheric Trace Species (UCATS) instrument has been enhanced since its last use in the NOAA UAS Demonstration of 2005 to now measure water vapor with a tunable diode laser in addition to carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrogen. A new, more precise ultraviolet ozone photometer has also been installed on the Altair. All of the above mentioned trace gases are produced during forest fires. Additional measurement of the greenhouse gas, sulfur hexafluoride, released in the distribution of electricity will help identity polluted urban air masses not influenced by fires.
Significance:
According to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) web site, there have been 61,000 wild land fires across the lower 48 states this year with over 4 million acres (larger than the state of Connecticut) burned before July 9th, the most over the past 6-years. Naturally occurring (lightning strikes) and human influenced forest fires in addition to consuming large quantities of biomass, release trace gases that can significantly influence regional air quality and climate. Weather and water, and climate are two of the four major goals of NOAA's mission where UAS platforms can increase our understanding by providing more data to predictive models.
