EC-TOOC umbrella proposal - EarthCARE, Tropical Oceans & Organized Convection

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The EC-TOOC mission (“EarthCARE, Tropical Oceans and Organized Convection” pronounced ”easy to see”) seeks to understand how organization of convection and meso-scale processes, influence the structure and dynamics of the inter-tropical convergence zone (ITZC) and its large scale environment. EC-TOOC will combine passive and active cloud remote sensing with intensive in-situ soundings by dropsondes to study the transformation of air masses whose confluence forms the ITCZ. By coordinating the airborne sampling with EarthCARE satellite overpasses, EC-TOOC will link its measurements to a new generation of satellite remote sensing. The upcoming EarthCARE satellite will become a spaceborne cloud observatory and will enable us to extend local studies to global scale. To establish confidence in EarthCARE products and inform their most intelligent use, we will intensively use HALO underflights for validation purposes. EC-TOOC will extend the previous missions (NARVAL-South, NARVAL-II and EUREC4A) cases to missing convective and aerosol regimes and contribute to a broader view of cloud-circulation coupling over the tropical oceans by focusing deep convection close to and at the ITCZ. The HALO aircraft will be stationed at Barbados and Cap Verde for three weeks in summer 2024, respectively, to sample convection and aerosol regimes over the entire tropical North Atlantic. The campaign will be complemented by further mid-latitude EarthCARE validation flights out of Oberpfaffenhofen by the end of the campaign in October 2024. The HALO deployment for EC-TOOC is equally supported by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and by the German Science foundation (DFG). It attracts broad international attention and likely will be a nucleus for additional activities, like e.g. the planned BOWTIE ship campaign or an envisioned contribution of the French the SAFIRE-ATR42 aircraft at Cape Verde.