DICE: DC-8 Inlet/Instrument Characterization Experiment

As wind blows along the California coast, across dry deserts, and through traffic-clogged city streets, aerosols fill the air and provide an ideal environment for a new NASA field experiment. NASA scientists and their university partners are sampling atmospheric aerosols such as sea salt, dust and urban pollution over California until mid-June.

Using NASA's DC-8 aircraft and ground stations, the DC-8 Inlet/Instrument Characterization Experiment or DICE will test the accuracy of instruments that measure aerosols, particles in the atmosphere. NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton. Va., is leading the field campaign that is based at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

Scientists plan to fly up the central valley of California and offshore of San Francisco and Los Angeles sampling air masses. The first science flight is scheduled for May 28.

Scientists from Langley, the University of Hawaii, the University of New Hampshire and the Georgia Institute of Technology are contributing remote-sensing and in-situ instruments to the DC-8 payload. They will compare aircraft instrument measurements among each other and to a ground stations located in California, including ones at Dryden, Rogers Dry Lake and Trinidad Head.

DICE will also support preparations for INTEX-NA or the Intercontinental Chemical Transport Experiment-North America field campaign. Scientists in INTEX-NA, scheduled for summer 2004 and spring 2006, will study the lower atmosphere over the U.S. East Coast and how air is transported across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.

NASA's DC-8 aircraft will make passes by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) aerosol monitoring station located at Trinidad Head in California.
Credit: Photo by J. Popenoe/NOAA

Contacts:

Chris Rink
Public Affairs Office
NASA Langley Research Center
757-864-6786

Science Goals:

• Support preparations for INTEX-NA
• Characterize aerosol inlets
• Inter-compare instruments and sampling techniques
• Test new and improved sensors and instruments

Participants:

• NASA's Langley Research Center
• University of Hawaii
• University of New Hampshire
• Georgia Institute of Technology