High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) CPEX-CV

The NASA CPEX-CV field campaign will be based out of Sal Island, Cabo Verde from August through September 2022. The campaign is a continuation of CPEX – Aerosols and Winds (CPEX-AW) and was conducted aboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft equipped with remote sensors and dropsonde-launch capability that will allow for the measurement of tropospheric aerosols, winds, temperature, water vapor, and precipitation.

The overarching CPEX-CV goal was to investigate atmospheric dynamics, marine boundary layer properties, convection, the dust-laden Saharan Air Layer, and their interactions across various spatial scales to improve understanding and predictability of process-level lifecycles in the data-sparse tropical East Atlantic region. HAMSR has 25 spectral channels which are split into 3 bands to provide measurements that can be used to infer the 3-dimensional distribution of temperature, water vapor, and cloud liquid water profiles in the atmosphere, even in the presence of clouds.