Polar Study Using Aircraft, Remote Sensing, Surface Measurements and Models of Climate, Chemistry, Aerosols and Transport

The arctic system is particularly sensitive to climate variability and filled with uncertainties. Furthermore complex feedback mechanisms— most being simply unknown—seem to be amplified in this environment. During the International Polar Year (IPY) a number of international partnerships were formed to establish the Polar Study using Aircraft, Remote Sensing, Surface Measurements and Models of Climate, Chemistry, Aerosols and Transport (POLARCAT). The POLARCAT projects cooperated with support from several national funding agencies to undertake the most comprehensive assessment of air pollution impacts on the Arctic to date. In spring and summer of 2008 more than 20 institutes from ten nations participated in intensive aircraft, ship, and station-based campaigns with accompanying efforts from the satellite and modeling communities to provide near real time products for mission planning and analysis. These campaigns provided an assessment of the role that tropospheric chemistry, aerosols, and transport play in the Arctic. The spring campaigns focused on anthropogenic pollution, while the summer campaigns targeted biomass burning. During the spring of 2008, over 80 flights were flown by five different aircraft as part of the ARCTAS, ISDAC, ARCPAC, and French POLARCAT campaigns, the ICEALOT campaign commissioned the R/V Knorr to travel over 12,000 km, and numerous specialty satellite and modelling products were developed with near real time distribution. These same products were again used for flight planning and forecasting in the summer when an additional 50+ flights were flown by the ARCTAS, French POLARCAT, Siberian YAK, and GRACE campaigns. Several ground based stations and the Siberian TROICA campaign also conducted intensive operating periods (IOPs). We present an overview of the individual campaigns and highlights of the research results.