Difficultly is Moot – a case for in situ measurements of the atmosphere

Abstract: The title of this presentation was inspired by my response to a reviewer comment on a recent paper: the technique proposed … requires a sophisticated instrumentation that is largely restricted to heavy airborne platforms…hence limiting the application of this technique… That review motivates me to broadly justify the science that we in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Chemical Processes group at NOAA are pursuing. I’ll share an overview of our airborne and land-based measurements with the “undercurrent” theme of stressing their value to the atmospheric science community. We are mandated by congress to “observe and monitor” the stratosphere for aerosols and gases relevant to ozone, climate, and assessment of stratospheric radiation management, a high-profile approach to geoengineering. I’ll highlight connections between our different approaches to sampling the stratosphere: via balloon-borne instrumentation with quite regular launches, as well as via a heavy airborne platform. I’ll then focus on the findings from the paper, which addressed large pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) events. We recognized aerosol “fingerprints” of pyroCb smoke in the stratosphere, developed a technique to attribute stratospheric aerosol to pyroCb, and constrained their long-term influence on the stratosphere.