Summary of Types of Data Collected on the University of Washington's Convair C-131A Aircraft in the Smoke, Clouds and Radiation -- Brazil (SCAR-B) Field Study from 17 August - 20 September 1995

Compiled by Peter V. Hobbs -- Principal Investigator

From 17 August to 20 September 1995, the University of Washington's (UW) Cloud and Aerosol Research Group, with its Convair C-131A research aircraft, participated in an intensive field study of smoke emissions from various types of biomass burning over a large area of Brazil. (See also the general description for a brief description of the project, its participants, and research flight objectives, plus a list of aircraft instrumentation).

An overview of the data collected:

• Twenty-nine research flights (~90 flight hours) in Brazil from 17 August - 20 September 1995.
• Transcriptions of the in-flight voice recordings made on the C-131A.
• Documentation of regional smoke properties from ~16° to 3° S and from ~64° to 48° W. (~67 filter sets.)
• One hundred and ten (110) photographs of fires, smoke, clouds and terrain.
• Aerosol and gas (NO, NO2, SO2, CO, CO2, O3 and hydrocarbons) measurements on smoke from ~16 cerrado and grass fires and ~16 forest and/or slash fires.
• Twenty-three samples for "true" emission factors for particulate (including CCN), NO, NO₂, SO₂, CO, CO₂ and total volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
• Three thousand nine hundred and seventy measurements of aerosol size distributions in regional haze and plumes.
• One hundred and fifty-six cloud condensation nucleus (CCN) spectra for smoke in individual plumes, in regional haze, and in cloud-processed smoke.
• One hundred and thirty-seven measurements of volatility of aerosols (at <=320°C).
• Seventy measurements of humidification factor of aerosols from individual fires and in regional haze.
• Extensive black carbon measurements by four techniques (optical extinction cell (OEC), aethelometer, Teflon filters, and thermal-optical). On 26 occasions, simultaneous measurements were obtained using all four techniques.
• One hundred and thirty-five measurements of single-scattering albedo of smoke from individual fires and in regional haze.
• Twenty smoke-cloud interaction studies.
• Seven direct aerosol "closure" experiments over NASA ground-based sun photometers.
• Six coordinated flights with NASA ER-2 (plus three other "crossings").
• Four flights during satellite overpasses (AVHRR and LANDSAT).
• Seven dedicated surface reflectivity and smoke measurements with CAR.
• Intermittent downward-pointing lidar measurements.