Technical adaptation of the MSS flight planning tool to evaluate the CAM-Chem VSLBr performance during SouthTRAC

BERNÁ PEÑA, LUCAS LUCIANO; LOPEZ, ANA ISABEL; BARRERAS, JAVIER; PULIAFITO, ENRIQUE; KINNISON, DOUGLAS; SAIZ-LOPEZ, ALFONSO; FERNANDEZ, RAFAEL P.

Karlsruhe

Workshop; Southtrac international workshop; 2020

Karlsruhe Institute fuer Technologie

The Mission Support System (MSS) is a software developed to scientifically assist researchers during the flight planning of aircraft atmospheric measurements, as well as to support model visualization and analysis. In context of the SouthTRAC Campaign based on Rio Grande, an Argentinan CONICET research group joined the MSS flight planning team to help with the forecasting evaluation of chemical composition of the lower stratosphere within the ozone hole periphery. With the purpose of providing MSS user-friendly additional information of the composition of the atmosphere and compare HALO observations at postprocessing time, the output of the halogenated version of the CAM-Chem chemistry climate model simulation was adapted to be compatible with MSS. The setup used in the CAM-Chem halogen simulation had a 1°x1.25° lat-lon resolution, 56 hybrid vertical levels from the surface to the middle stratosphere and considered assimilated meteorology from MERRA, including an explicit treatment of brominated very short-lived (VSLBr) sources and chemistry. The data visualization format in the adapted MSS local CONICET version was configured to match the one used by the Chemical Lagrangian Model of the Stratosphere (CLaMs), which was the operational forecasting tool used in the campaign, keeping identical color scales and fixed scale limits for each vertical level. Both top-view and side view functionalities of MSS were successfully implemented for CAM-Chem outputs for each of the SouthTRAC final flight-paths. In addition to VSLBr , long-lived bromine and chlorine species, ozone and the main inorganic halogen mixing ratios, other CAM-Chem variables such as ozone depletion and heterogeneous recycling rates, can be analyzed in horizontal domains and vertical crosssections across the flightpath within the measured area.