Project Overview
The Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) is the largest meteorological pattern in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer season. Persistent convection and the large anticyclonic flow pattern in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) associated with ASM leads to a significant enhancement in the UTLS of trace species from pollution and biomass burning origins....
» more
Scientific Objectives
➤ To investigate the transport pathways of ASM uplifted air from inside of the anticyclone to the global UTLS.
➤ To sample the chemical content of air processed in the ASM in order to quantify the role of the ASM in transporting chemically active species and short-lived climate forcing agents to the UTLS and determine their impact on stratospheric ozone chemistry and global climate.
➤ To obtain information on aerosol size, mass and chemical composition necessary for determining the radiative impact of the ASM, for constraining models of aerosol formation and for contrasting the organic-rich ASM UTLS aerosol population with that of the background aerosol population.
➤ To measure the water vapor distribution associated with the monsoon dynamical structure to evaluate transport across the tropopause, and determine the role of the ASM in water vapor transport into the stratosphere.
