CIF: Supporting the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) Portable Atmospheric Research Center (SPARC)

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This Community Instruments and Facilities (CIF) award is for support of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Space Science and Engineering Center Portable Atmospheric Research Center (SPARC) mobile research laboratory. The SPARC CIF will provide the research community access to a specialized suite of atmospheric observing instrumentation housed in a mobile research laboratory that can be rapidly deployed to regions of interest for atmospheric science research. SPARC provides capability to measure properties of the lowest levels of the Earth’s atmosphere that impact people and is critical for testing and improving models for weather forecasting, air quality, and climate change. The project will involve the participation and apprenticeship of students, scientists, technical staff, and community members in order to train the next generation of researchers. The highly specialized ground-based remote sensing instruments comprising of the Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer, High Spectral Resolution Lidar, and a doppler wind lidar will provide simultaneous thermodynamic and kinematic profiles in the planetary boundary layer, along with detailed profiles of cloud and aerosol properties of the entire atmosphere at high temporal and vertical resolution. These observations will enable new field experiments to test models of physical processes in the boundary layer, and to fill spatial and temporal gaps in current observing systems that have prevented scientific advancement. Community access to this facility will support fundamental research in a broad range of fields including mesoscale meteorology, tropospheric chemistry, cloud physics, land-atmosphere interaction, climatology, and energy balance studies. The project will pursue an education and outreach program nationwide with particular focus on involving underrepresented groups in the sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.