Large-Scale Air-Sea Interaction over the Tropical Eastern Pacific--Airborne Observations along 95 Degree W TAO Mooring Line during EPIC2001

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EPIC (Eastern Pacific Investigation of Climate processes in the coupled ocean-atmosphere system) is an activity of the US CLIVAR Program. EPIC 2001 consists of four components focussing on (i) intertropical convergence zone/warm pool phenomena; (ii) cross-equatorial inflow into the intertropical convergence zone; (iii) upper ocean structure and mixing and (iv) an exploratory study of boundary layer cloud properties in the southeasterly tradewind regime. The field phase of EPIC 2001 is scheduled for a 6-week period during the interval Sept 1 to Oct 15, 2001. In addition to the eight awards made by ATM, this collaborative research has awards made by NSF/OCE and NOAA/OGP.During the field phase, the PIs will collect atmospheric observations at flight levels and from GPS dropsondes, and upper ocean observations from expendable profilers. Flights will be carried out at different phases of atmospheric synoptic-scale disturbances. These data sets will be combined with observations from the TAO moorings and satellite remote sensing to describe concurrent large-scale meridional-vertical structures of the atmospheric temperature, humidity, winds, oceanic temperature, salinity, currents and air-sea fluxes in the cold tongue ITCZ complex. These data will provide a large-scale perspective for other EPIC 2001 measurements that provide micro and meso-scale structure of the ocean and atmosphere in the eastern tropical Pacific. The work is important because it will improve understanding and modeling of climate variability over the eastern tropical Pacific.