NASA to Study Climate Impact of Pacific Storms

NASA next week plans to kick off its largest Earth science field study of the year, a project involving more than 400 scientists seeking to learn more about how ice crystals, gases and aerosol particles influence climate and cloud formation, according to news from the space agency.

Dubbed the "Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling" (TC4) field campaign, the study will use a host of instruments -- including high-flying research planes, weather balloons and ground-based radar -- to measure how strong storms over tropical waters affect air circulation patterns and atmospheric composition. The goal is to be able to map the complete life cycle of such storm clouds, from the size and shape of the ice crystals they are composed of on up, to get a better understanding of the changes being wrought by global warming.

"This campaign is an unprecedented opportunity to use NASA's complete suite of satellite and airborne Earth-observing capabilities to investigate a largely unexplored region of the atmosphere," said Michael J. Kurylo, a NASA scientist taking part in the study. "This tropical transitional layer of the atmosphere between the troposphere and the stratosphere plays a key role in both climate change science and atmospheric ozone chemistry. The data will yield new insights into the composition of this layer and the impact of the deep clouds that penetrate the atmosphere up into this layer."

The $12 million TC4 campaign is scheduled to run July 16 through Aug. 8.

During the summer months, the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean along the coasts south of Costa Rica help spawn numerous heat-driven storms. The circulation patterns in these strong storms can pump air, moisture, gases and aerosols 40,000 feet or more above the surface, well beyond the troposphere layer where life thrives and into the reaches of the next layer up, the stratosphere. The lower part of the stratosphere includes the ozone layer that protects regions below from the sun's harmful ultraviolet radiation.