Between doldrums and tropical storms - The international HALO aircraft campaign PERCUSION

From the beginning of August to the end of September the Meteorological Institute contributed to the HALO aircraft campaign PERCUSION. The cloud systems of the intertropical convergence zone were studied using the German research aircraft HALO from Cape Verde and Barbados islands, i.e. from both sides of the Atlantic, and with the new ESA satellite EarthCARE. How do clouds form and disappear and how do they influence each other over the entire region. This is the area where tropical storms evolve from areas of intense convection as well as large calm areas - notorious among sailors - the doldrums.

PERCUSION was one component of the larger international ORCESTRA measurement campaign in which - apart from HALO - several aircraft, ground stations and the German research vessel Meteor were involved. In addition to systems from the other national partners - radar and lidar, infrared camera system, microwave radiometer and a system for dropping sondes - the HALO aircraft was equipped with the imaging and polarized spectrometer system specMACS of the Meteorological Institute's Chair of Experimental Meteorology (Prof. Mayer).

Links:

• ORCESTRA Homepage - Organized Convection and EarthCare Studies over the Tropical Atlantic
• ESA Blog - ORCESTRA: Chasing thunderstorms for EarthCARE
• Further Information of Max-Planck-Instituts für Meteorologie in Hamburg