CABL: Characterizing the Atmospheric Boundary Layer

Summary

The “Characterizing the Atmospheric Boundary Layer” (CABL) educational deployment leveraged multiple outreach opportunities to provide scientific opportunities to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students in Colorado’s Front Range. Several EOL facilities were deployed as part of CABL, including 12 sonic anemometers and 6 temperature/relative humidity probes mounted on the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory (BAO), 40 mobile GPS Advanced Upper-­‐air Soundings (MGAUS), and the deployment of two Integrated Surface Flux stations, one at the BAO and in the vicinity of Erie High School.

These deployments occurred in conjunction with the XPIA experiment, conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and the Earth Systems Research Laboratory at NOAA with colleagues from the University of Maryland Baltimore Country and the University of Texas at Dallas. The primary scientific goal of the XPIA experiment was to characterize the capabilities of remote sensing instrumentation, such as scanning lidar and radar, in a range of air quality conditions. As we had expected, spring conditions on Colorado’s Front Range brought several rounds of precipitation (ranging from light to heavy, rain through snow) as well as strong diurnal cycles and the resulting cycle in atmospheric stability, providing an excellent testbed for evaluating the performance of lidars, radars, and radiometers.

Because of close cooperation between XPIA staff and Erie High School (EHS), located ~ 1 km from the BAO, we were able to work closely with environmental science and meteorology teachers at EHS, as well as with undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and local middle school students. This document highlights the educational impact of the CABL deployment. The atmospheric science research enabled by CABL and XPIA is summarized in an NREL technical report (in preparation) and a submission to the Bulletin of the American Meterological Society (in preparation) as well as several papers to be submitted to a special issues of Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (http://www.atmospheric-­‐measurement-­‐ techniques.net/about/special_issues.html).