CIF: Mobile Atmospheric Profiling Network (MAPNet) Facility for Boundary Layer and Precipitation Investigations

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This Community Instruments and Facilities (CIF) award is for the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Mobile Atmospheric Profiling Network (MAPNet). MAPNet consists of a suite of instruments that specialize in remotely retrieving temperature, moisture, wind, and other properties of the atmospheric boundary layer. MAPNet has been used to study topics from severe thunderstorms to winter weather, and this award will provide for broader scientific community access to the instrumentation, leading to new research ideas and findings. The facility will also be used as an educational and outreach tool, providing opportunities for students at a variety of institutions to interact with state-of-the-art instrumentation. This CIF award is for the provision of four existing mobile profiling systems that are integrated into the Mobile Atmospheric Profiling Network (MAPNet). MAPNet consists of the Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS), the Rapidly Deployable Atmospheric Profiling System (RaDAPS), the Mobile Doppler Lidar and Sounding system (MoDLS), and the Mobile Alabama X-band radar (MAX). The combination of wind profilers, lidars, radiometers, and other instruments can be integrated to provide high-resolution profiles of wind, temperature, humidity, aerosols, cloud base, and precipitation in the atmospheric boundary layer over a broad range of conditions. The University of Alabama at Huntsville profiling facilities have been used over the past 20 years in field campaigns on a variety of topics such as convective initiation, severe weather, and winter storms. New areas of science where the MAPNet instruments could be used include boundary layer impacts from surface heterogeneities, temporal (morning, evening, rain-induced) transitions in the boundary layer, fog, air quality, and cloud electrification and lightning studies. This award will enhance the ability of the broader scientific community to use MAPNet through the AGS field campaign request process.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.