Collaborative Research: Thunderstorm Influences on Lightning and Atmospheric Chemistry in Oklahoma and North Texas during the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) Project

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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, microphysical, and electrification processes upon upper tropospheric composition and chemistry. This award will support collection and analysis of surface mesonet data in tandem with lightning mapping array (LMA) and in-situ balloon-borne measurements characterizing the electrical and microphysical behavior of thunderstorm systems within the Oklahoma-Texas subregion of DC3. This work will be done in coordination with airborne atmospheric chemistry measurements from by a specially instrumented NSF/NCAR GV high-altitude jet and NASA DC-8 platform. LMA data will be obtained from both an existing Oklahoma array and a planned west-Texas network. Mobile ballooning teams will work in close coordination with other NSF-supported investigators to obtain convective updraft profiles of electric fields, thermodynamics, airflow and videosonde measurements of hydrometeor size, shape, phase and number density and to interpret these measurements within the context of both fixed-based and mobile polarimetric radar observations.The intellectual merit of this research derives from improved understanding of processes influencing lightning rates and structure (viz. channel lengths, structure and three-dimensional distribution) and storm-scale electric field polarity as a function of storm lifecycle and in relation to storm kinematic/microphysical properties, which will in-turn allow improved estimation lightning-induced NOx production and associated chemical transformations pivotal to DC3 program objectives. These measurements will also support improved numerical storm simulations through more accurate specification of storm environment and distribution of various hydrometeors throughout electrically active clouds. Broader impacts will accrue through both graduate and undergraduate student education within a field-project setting, via public outreach, by aiding operational forecasters in the interpretation of total lightning mapping data as anticipated from the GOES-R satellite, 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.