SUCCESS Apr 10 - May 16, 1996

Official SUCCESS homepage

Brief description

SUbsonic aircraft: Contrail & Clouds Effects Special Study (SUCCESS) is a NASA field program using scientifically instrumented aircraft and ground based measurements to investigate the effects of subsonic aircraft on contrails, cirrus clouds and atmospheric chemistry. The experiment is cosponsored by NASA's Subsonic Assessment Program and the Radiation Sciences Program which are part of the overall Aeronautics and Mission to Planet Earth Programs, respectively. SUCCESS has well over a hundred direct participants from several NASA Centers, other agencies, universities and private research companies.

SUCCESS has several objectives:
- Better determine the radiative properties of cirrus clouds and of contrails so that satellite observations can better determine their impact on Earth's radiation budget.
- To determine how cirrus clouds form
- Whether the exhaust from subsonic aircraft presently affects the formation of cirrus clouds, and if the exhaust does affect the clouds whether the changes induced are of climatological significance.
- To pave the way for future studies by developing and testing several new instruments.
- To better determine the characteristics of gaseous and particulate exhaust products from subsonic aircraft and their evolution in the region near the aircraft.

Special remarks concerning ETHmeg database content

A CD-ROM with SUCCESS data is available. All data is in NASA-Ames format. The CD contains chemical measurements from the DC-8, the ER-2 and the T39 aircraft. Here is a list of SUCCESS project links and here is the "end-of-mission" statement with useful information about instrument performance etc.

The following DC-8 files available on the CD-ROM in directory data/dc8 were used:

• DP: DADS flight path data: pressure alt (converted to pressure), lat, lon, TAS, E-W ground speed, N-S ground speed, True Heading, Pitch, Roll, Radar Altitude.
• DM: DADS meteo data: p, T, theta, u, v, IR T surface, dew/frost point (3-stage), QF for dewpt, dew/frost point (2-stage), QF for dewpt.
• OH (*.da1 are preliminary and *.da2 are final data): ATHOS OH, HO2
• RH: T, dewpt, RH, MIXR
• DA: (DACOM_NDIR_DLH) CO, CH4, N2O, CO2.
• LH: Laser hygrometer. H2O mixing ratio
• NF: forward inlet NOy
• NO: NO
• NY: backward inlet NOy
• O3: O3

Note: Many measurements were obtained in aircraft plumes during chasing of other aircraft. These data can be identified by strongly increased NO and NOy (attention: in stratosphere NOy is increased as well) concentrations and should be removed for model validation purposes.

Overview of measurement techniques and uncertainties

References

- Special section in GRL, Apr 15, May 1, May 15, 1998.
- For further referernces see Success homepage