As if driving 5 hours across the wilds of Utah and Nevada in an under powered 30 year old truck wasn’t enough, Raul and Chris proceeded to spend several hours setting up the TOPAZ ozone lidar at the North Las Vegas Airport (NLVA) and then took 3 hours of amazing data that captured adjacent filaments of stratospheric and subtropical air above Las Vegas, all without stopping for lunch or dinner. Meanwhile, Scott flew out from Boulder, retrieved the microDop lidar from the shipping company, brought it to the NLVA in a truck, set it up with a fork lift, and started up the automatic operations. Tomorrow, Jeff, Bill, and Zach will take the mobile van up to Angel Peak. What a team!
TOPAZ (left) and microDop (right) lidars at the NLVA. Photo by Scott Sandberg.
Time-height curtain plot of the ozone mixing ratios measured by TOPAZ above the NLVA on May 17, 2017. The dark gray and red areas originated in the lower stratosphere, the bright blue areas in the subtropical lower troposphere.
Yay!!! TOPAZ is up and running!!! Great job for NOAA team!
I wonder if the local pizza place will deliver to the airport… 🙂
Looking forward to great discoveries with FAST- LVOS team!