OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea -- This year Osan is hosting numerous national scientific agencies in support of the Asian Summer Monsoon Chemical and Climate Impact Project (ACCLIP) from late July until early September.
In addition to NASA, the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF/NCAR), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of Naval Research is assisting with this research.
The goal of ACCLIP is to help scientists and researchers understand how Asian gas and aerosol emissions from human-related activities and naturally occurring biological processes affect earth's chemistry and climate.
“The monsoon plays a key role in this project, since it sets up the anti-cyclone that leads to the flow of various gases from the surface of Asia into the upper atmosphere,” said Dr. Paul Newman, NASA chief scientist for earth sciences. “The Asian anti-cyclone then carries that air around to Korea where the NASA WB-57 and NSF G-V aircraft can measure those gases and particles.”
The WB-57 and the NSF G-V collect air samples from different altitudes in the atmosphere to be examined for temperature, pressure, ozone, volatile organic chemicals and more, in order for scientists to comprehend the impact of emissions.
“Many of these gases are ozone depleting substances or climate gases. Because we can trace these gases, we can estimate how much is getting into our atmosphere and then determine its impact on both the ozone layer and the climate,” said Newman.
Newman explained, once all the samples are collected from Korea, the scientists will then return to their home institutions and carefully validate the data they’ve taken to conduct further processing and analysis before releasing their scientific reports.
“We have a science team meeting of our entire group to discuss the results,” said Newman. “The data will go public on the NSF and NASA websites for anyone to freely use.”
The results of ACCLIP will help with future studies that support the preservation of the ozone layer and provide information for scientists to compare how the atmosphere has evolved in the future.