PSL miniFlux
Recent advances in technology have given rise to smaller, lighter, and more cost-effective research instruments for use on small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UASs). One such instrument is the miniFlux, a sensor suite developed jointly by the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory and University of Colorado Boulder.
miniFlux measures 3D wind, air temperature, surface and sky temperature, and atmospheric humidity. These observations provide all of the information necessary to compute the exchange (or “flux”) of heat and momentum between the Earth's surface and the atmosphere. These fluxes play a critical role in regulating weather and climate, helping to drive the development of clouds, remove heat from ocean surfaces, and govern exchange of heat and moisture between the land surface and overlying atmosphere. Additionally, momentum fluxes are responsible for the development and maintenance of turbulence and the structure of winds in the atmosphere. As a result, a better understanding of atmospheric fluxes is a key component of improving forecasts.
Measuring these atmospheric fluxes has traditionally been limited to areas accessible by surface-based instrumentation (towers, buoys, ships). Small UASs provide unique opportunities for research since they can fly at very low altitude, over a variety of different surface types, and in hazardous conditions, while sampling at a much slower flight speed than possible with most piloted aircraft. This slower speed allows for the collection of higher-resolution data, which is very important for calculating fluxes. UASs' reduced cost allows for more frequent science flights in difficult-to-reach environments, resulting in the statistical coverage required to develop robust representation of fluxes in weather and climate prediction models.
miniFlux instrumentation has been tested and flown in Boulder, and in a number of field campaigns including North Slope of Alaska in support of the Stratified Ocean Dynamics of the Arctic (SODA) campaign; over the Great Plains of the U.S. to support severe storms research during the Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS of Supercells (TORUS) campaign; over the Beaufort Sea as part of Arctic Heat; over the tropical Atlantic in support of Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC); over the central Arctic Ocean as part of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition; over the coastal Great Lakes as part of a campaign to understand Wisconsin's Dynamic Influence of Shoreline Circulations on Ozone (WISCO-DISCO); and over coastal Texas to better understand the development of extreme precipitation events under the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions Experiment (TRACER).
