Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX)

In the Fall of 1993, NASA sponsored a field program called the Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX). The field phase was conducted from September 7 through October 7, 1993. One of NASA's roles in CAMEX was to collect aircraft remote sensing measurements during the program and to participate in research supporting the use of these measurements to address the specific CAMEX objectives. The MAMS was flown to provide high resolution measurements of water vapor for comparison to ground-based systems. CAMEX involved several ground-based instruments that were located near Wallops Island, Virginia. These instruments included a Raman lidar, Ground-Based HIS (GBHIS), CLASS, and conventional rawinsonde sites. The primary purpose for these instruments was to serve as ground truth for the aircraft instruments. Thus, the MAMS objectives reflect the availability of these data for "ground truthing."

The primary science objectives with MAMS for CAMEX were to:

  1. intercompare HIS and MAMS data along the flight track for an extended region for variability assessment and integrated water content (IWC) retrieval comparison,
  2. use HIS and MAMS data surrounding the Raman lidar to provide a three-way intercomparison/validation of water vapor signatures, and
  3. use ground truth rawinsonde information for absolute verification and algorithm assessment/improvement. To achieve these objectives, the ER-2 made several flights over Wallops Island and the adjacent land and ocean.

The MAMS 6.5 micrometer channel has been used to map variations in upper tropospheric water vapor associated with a variety of atmospheric disturbances. The split-window channels at 11 and 12 micrometer allow surface temperature estimations and the determination of total-integrated water content (IWC) in a column of the atmosphere. In particular, the split-window channels can be used to monitor water vapor variability in the vicinity of Wallops Island. This is achieved by computing IWC over Wallops Island for several flights of MAMS and comparing the derived values to those from the HIS, the Raman lidar, rawinsondes, and the GBHIS. Furthermore, comparisons can be made with HIS during any portion of the flight. Previous investigations portray the utility of remotely sensed IWC and found reasonable agreement in their comparisons and were able to relate relatively high IWC values to the formation of clouds. Other studies for the retrieval of IWC suggest a poor performance at night due to a lower air/land temperature contrast. Since most of the CAMEX missions were flown at night, they provide an excellent opportunity to further investigate the nighttime results.

 

CAMEX-1 ER-2 flights

Flight

Region

Objective

DayDate Number Time (UTC) Configuration
(Visible / Infrared)		 
Sept. 1193254 93163 1800 - 1915 #2 / #3CA, Pacific Ocean Test Flight
Sept. 1293255 93164 2000 - 0300 #2 / #3------Ferry to Wallops/Water Vapor
Sept. 1593258 93165 2005 - 2135 #2 / #3VA, MD, DE, NJ, Atlantic Ocean SSM/T-2 Underflight
Sept. 1993262 93166 2000 - 2215 #2 / #3VA, MD, Atlantic Ocean Ocean Convection
Sept. 2593268 93167 1610 - 1825 #2 / #3NC, VA, MD, Atlantic Ocean Aircraft Test Flight
Sept. 2693269 93168 1900 - 2340 #2 / #3VA, MD, DE, Atlantic Ocean Ocean Convection/Water Vapor
Sept. 2993271 93169 0100 - 0500 #2 / #3VA, DE, MD, Atlantic Ocean AIRS (Water Vapor) mission
Sept. 3093273 93178 2000 - 0220 #2 / #3VA, MD, DE, NJ, MA, GA, NC, Atlantic Ocean SSM/T-2 Underflight/Water Vapor
Oct. 393276 94001 2000 - 0330 #2 / #3FL, NC, VA, MD, DE, Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean Ocean Convection/Water Vapor
Oct. 5 93278 94002 1600 - 2340 #2 / #3FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, Atlantic Ocean Ocean Convection
Oct. 793280 94003 1355 - 2010 #2 / #3------Ferry back to Ames

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Responsible Official: Dr. James L. Smoot (James.L.Smoot@nasa.gov)
Page Curator: Paul J. Meyer (paul.meyer@msfc.nasa.gov)
Last updated on: May 30, 1997