NASA DC-8's Polar Wind Flights

摘要

The NASA Airborne Science Program DC-8 Airborne Laboratory Aircraft (N817NA) recently flew to Keflavik from where it conducted research flights into winds around Iceland and Greenland. The aircraft used Doppler aerosol and tropospheric wind lidar sensors to collect measurements into winds above the polar region, where cold air masses from the Arctic combine with warmer air to generate weather systems that influence the climate across the northern hemisphere. Data was also collected from tube-shaped probes dropped from the fuselage. The information gathered by the aircraft will be combined with that generated by the lidar systems on the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft und Raumfahrt, DLR)'s Dassault Falcon 20E, which also flew over the same regions in May. All the data will be used by European Space Agency scientists to create complex models of Earth's weather and climate patterns for the ADM-Aeolus satellite, due for launch next year, which will provide real-time measurements of Earth's wind fields to help with forecasting.