Aura Validation Experiment (AVE)

The Aura Validation Experiment (AVE) is a NASA science campaign to understand the transport of gases and aerosols in the tropical troposphere and their exchange with the lower stratosphere to better model global scale air quality and climate change.

AVE January 2004 is an initial test experiment leading to the Aura Validation Experiment (AVE), scheduled to begin in Fiscal Year 2005. AVE provides important validation of satellite instruments and observations for the Aura satellite, to be launched no earlier than March 2004.

Scientists will work to assess the operations of aircraft instrumentation and the quality of atmospheric measurements to be taken in support of AVE.

Contacts:

Don Anderson
Program Manager
Headquarters, Washington DC

Mike Gaunce
Project Manager
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field CA

Paul Newman
Project Scientist
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD

Science Goals:

• Tests concepts for using high quality in-situ and remote data sets for Aura validation.
• Assess operations of aircraft instrumentation and the quality of atmospheric measurements to be taken in support of AVE.
• Develop liaison interactions with collaborating teams and educate the public.
• Make observations of the influx of material from the tropical troposphere into the stratosphere.
• Characterize the Tropical Tropopause Layer (TTL) including relationships of water vapor, CO2, ozone pre-cursors and ozone production.

Partners:

Approximately 50-60 scientists, managers and support personnel will be deployed while the science flights are being conducted, including researchers from NCAR, NOAA and several universities. The experiment will also be supported by forecasts from meteorological and chemical models.

AVE is sponsored by the NASA Earth Science Enterprise Radiation Sciences Program, Upper Atmospheric Research Program, Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling and Analysis Program (ACMAP) and the Earth Observing System Program.

When:

NASA expects to conduct three to five science flights between January 15 and February 1, 2004.

Where:

The AVE experiment will be conducted from the NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, and the Juan Santamaria International Airport, San Jose, Costa Rica, using the NASA WB-57 high-altitude aircraft. The aircraft will use up to 20 atmospheric science instruments for in situ detection and measurement of ozone, aerosols, water, carbon dioxide, local temperature and pressure.

Links:

Mission Site:

http://cloud1.arc.nasa.gov/ave/index.cgi

For information about Aura:

http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/