An Observational Study of the Kinematic and Microphysical Control of Lightning Properties over Alabama During Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3)

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The Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) field campaign to be conducted May-June 2012 is a multi-regional, multi-platform effort to determine the impact of deep midlatitude continental convective clouds and their intrinsic dynamical, physical, and electrification processes upon upper tropospheric composition and chemistry. This award will support focused measurements in the Southeastern U.S., but this research will be conducted in close coordination with other studies focused on deep convective cloud-chemistry interactions along the Front Range of Colorado and across the Southern Plains region of Oklahoma and Texas, allowing characterization of contrasting modes of convective behavior and background chemistry across these diverse regions. Support of this particular effort will facilitate collection and analysis of data including: ground-based polarimetric Doppler radar observations, mobile soundings, and total lightning mapping array observations centered on northern Alabama. These observations will be performed in coordination with overflight of aircraft especially instrumented for DC3 including the NSF/NCAR GV high-altitude jet and NASA DC-8 aircraft.The intellectual merit of this research rests on comprehensive description of convective motions responsible for rapid transport of water substance and chemical constituents from the boundary layer up to the troposphere-stratosphere interface, as well as requisite microphysical interactions key cloud electrification and subsequent production of nitrogen oxides. Broader impacts will come through graduate student education and a combination of media-based public and local school outreach, and ultimately through improved knowledge of the influence of deep atmospheric convection on the chemical composition of earth's atmosphere in the presence of natural and anthropogenic emissions.