A highly specialized government science aircraft is to arrive at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport next week.
With it will be a team of about 10 scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne, Brookhaven and Pacific Northwest national laboratories, who will sample local skies from July 20 through Aug. 15 as part of a much larger study effort.
"One main goal is to understand how pollutants from the northeastern United States affect climate and air quality as they spread over the north Atlantic Ocean," said Peter Daum, lead researcher for the Brookhaven team.
The research is part of the International Consortium for Atmospheric Research on Transport and Transportation -- ICARTT for short. The experiment unites a number of institutions and government agencies in a regional air quality and climate study of unprecedented scope.
ICARTT collaborators include the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration and NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"It's a really big study," said Karen McNulty Walsh, principle media and communications specialist at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, N.Y.
"This plane is only a small piece," Walsh said, explaining that similar research is simultaneously being conducted in a number of other locations around the northeastern United States and in northern Europe, as well as from boats on the Atlantic Ocean.
Additional ground-based instruments also will be deployed.
The G-1 Gulfstream airplane carries some impressive research-grade data-recording instruments.
"There's definitely some heavy-duty instrumentation in there," Walsh said.
Airport manager Gabe Monzo said the high-tech, twin turbo-prop aircraft will be parked on the apron, and the scientists will work out of trailers while they are here.
The plane will fly at various altitudes to conduct studies of aerosol formation and growth in cloud-like "plumes" from sources such as power plants and urban centers, Walsh said. Aerosols are air-borne pollutants, such as sulfur compounds, linked to emissions from fossil fuel-burning power plants and other industrial sources.
By themselves, and by affecting the brightness of clouds, the aerosols may increase the amount of incoming sunlight that is reflected back into space, exerting a cooling effect on the Earth.
"But because their concentrations are highly variable, and because they are removed from the atmosphere fairly quickly, it is difficult to assess these effects and the impact of aerosols on climate without collecting the data in the ambient atmosphere," Daum said.
All measurement data the energy department obtains will be made available to the scientific community and to the public, Walsh said.
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