EAGER: A New Method for Sampling Sea-Salt Aerosols

海洋环境中的海盐气溶胶由破碎的海浪、白色的冰盖或破裂的气泡形成。它们以微小液滴的形式悬浮在空气中，影响能见度。这些水滴被称为巨云凝聚核(GCCN)，也被假设在云和降水的发展中发挥作用。GCCN的测量是有限的，主要来自需要放置在昂贵的研究飞机上的仪器。该奖项将允许开发一种低成本的3D打印仪器，可以用风筝和无人驾驶飞机测量GCCN。这些测量将有助于解决关于GCCN在云和降水发展中的作用的问题，这可能会对天气和气候模拟产生影响。学生将参与该系统的设计和测试，为他们提供动手研究活动。研究小组计划开发一种新的、低成本的仪器来测量GCCN。GCCN是非常有效的凝聚和快速生长的原子核。它们在云开发中的作用在云物理界仍被认为是未知的。一种假设是，GCCN拓宽了液滴谱，并能加速暖云中的降水启动。GCCN传统上是通过将显微镜载玻片暴露在飞机外部的自由气流中来测量的。研究小组将开发一种被称为迷你GNI的巨核撞击器的微型版本，可以在风筝或UAS上飞行。风筝测量最初之所以成为目标，是因为它们能够在一段时间内在一致的时间点执行欧拉采样。此外，可以将多台仪器连接到风筝上，并可选择测量多个高度。迷你GNI将进行3D打印，并使用Raspberry PI计算机运行。具体的工作任务包括测试风筝设置、树莓PI系统和补充状态变量测量。整个迷你GNI包裹将被多次飞行，并将收集和分析样本。

Sea-salt aerosol form in marine environments from breaking waves, white capping, or bursting bubbles. They remain suspended in the air as tiny droplets and affect visibility. These droplets, known as Giant Cloud Condensation Nuclei (GCCN), are also hypothesized to play a role in cloud and precipitation development. Measurements of GCCN are limited and primarily come from an instrument that requires placement on an expensive research aircraft. This award will allow for the development of a low-cost, 3D-printed instrument that can make measurements of GCCN from kites and unmanned aircraft. The measurements will help to resolve questions about the role of GCCN in the development of clouds and precipitation, which will potentially make an impact on weather and climate modeling. Students will be involved in the design and testing of the system, providing them with hands-on research activities.The research team plans to develop a new, low-cost instrument to measure GCCN. GCCN are extremely efficient nuclei for condensation and rapid growth. Their role in cloud development is still considered an unknown in the cloud physics community. One hypotheses is that GCCN broaden the droplet spectrum and can accelerate precipitation initiation in warm clouds. GCCN are traditionally measured by exposing a microscope slide to the free air stream outside of an aircraft. The research team will develop a miniaturized version of the Giant Nucleus Impactor known as the mini-GNI that can be flown on kites or UASs. Kite measurements are initially targeted due to their ability to perform Eularian sampling at a consistent point over time. Also, multiple instruments can be attached to kites with the option of measuring multiple altitudes. The mini-GNI will be 3D-printed and run using a Raspberry Pi computer. The specific work tasks include testing of the kite setup, the Raspberry Pi system, and the complementary state variable measurements. The entire mini-GNI package will be flown multiple times and the samples will be collected and analyzed.