HR: 11:20h
AN: A52C-04    [Abstracts]
TI: Fast in situ gas chromatographic analysis of important atmospheric trace gases for both manned and unmanned aircraft.
AU: * Elkins, J W
EM: james.w.elkins@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, United States
AU: Moore, F L
EM: fred.moore@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, United States
AU: Moore, F L
EM: fred.moore@noaa.gov
AF: CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, United States
AU: Hurst, D F
EM: dale.hurst@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, United States
AU: Hurst, D F
EM: dale.hurst@noaa.gov
AF: CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, United States
AU: Dutton, G S
EM: geoff.dutton@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, United States
AU: Dutton, G S
EM: geoff.dutton@noaa.gov
AF: CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, United States
AU: Nance, J D
EM: david.nance@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, United States
AU: Nance, J D
EM: david.nance@noaa.gov
AF: CIRES, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, United States
AU: Hall, B D
EM: bradley.hall@noaa.gov
AF: NOAA, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305-3328, United States
AB: Atmospheric trace gases play an important role in climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and air quality. Observations of the vertical profiles of these gases over a wide range of latitudes are extremely useful for testing climate models, estimating atmospheric lifetimes, and making estimates of emissions. Measuring the vertical and horizontal distributions from fast moving airborne platforms requires high sampling frequency. Traditional measurement technologies have included gas chromatography and mass spectroscopy. These methods can require massive size, "off the shelf" laboratory equipment along with long times (10-60 minutes) to perform the separation of gases on chromatographic adsorption columns and/or to concentrate part-per-trillion levels of these gases on adsorption traps. We have used a combination of heart-cutting chromatography, fold-back chromatography, and dual channel trapping to improve our sampling frequency. Our team also has been involved in reducing the size of the airborne instrumentation. We developed a two-channel gas chromatograph (GC) that flew during the NOAA Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Demo in 2005 and the NASA Fire Mission in 2006 on the NASA UAS Altair (General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Predator B type). It measured carbon monoxide, methane, and hydrogen on one GC channel and nitrous oxide and sulfur hexafluoride on the other channel. Customized versions of commercially available instruments for ambient temperature, relative humidity, ozone and water vapor also were incorporated into the UAS GC for the Fire mission. The ultimate goal is to further reduce the size of these instruments to suit smaller size UAS. The past successes and possibilities for the future will be addressed in this talk.
UR: http://uas.noaa.gov
DE: 0340 Middle atmosphere: composition and chemistry
DE: 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry
DE: 0394 Instruments and techniques
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting