GCMD Project Keyword Description Update Request

by **ASDC - gmojica** » Thu Jan 29, 2026 2:20 pm America/New_York

Hello, through preparation for WebU, the ASDC is requesting the following Project Keyword Descriptions be updated in GCMD. The requested new descriptions are as follows:

Project: AASE
New Description: AASE Mission Overview: NASA addressed the crucial scientific issue of global ozone depletion. A major airborne campaign was planned and executed in August and September 1987 to study the sudden and unanticipated decrease observed in the abundance of ozone over Antarctica in the Austral Spring since 1979. Results from that study have provided data which directly implicate man-made chemical compounds, chlorofluorocarbons, in the enormous ozone loss over this remote region in the southern hemisphere. To continue the study of the production and loss mechanisms for ozone in the polar stratosphere and to assess human’s growing influence on the environment, NASA launched a follow-on experiment to the one conducted over the Antarctic. The second major aircraft-campaign occurred in January-February 1989. The Ozone Trends Panel Report published found that the largest decrease in total ozone occurred during January-February at latitudes near the edge of the Arctic vortex. This experiment investigated the Arctic polar stratosphere from a base in Norway. The primary objectives of the 1989 Airborne Arctic Stratospheric Expedition (AASE) are: To study the production and loss mechanisms of ozone in the north polar stratospheric environment. To study the effect on ozone distribution of the Arctic polar vortex and of the cold temperatures associated with the formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSC’s). Approach The Upper Atmospheric Research Program sponsored by the NASA Office of Space Science and Applications has supported the development of instrumentation specifically designed to measure trace species critical to the understanding of stratospheric photochemistry and dynamics. This airborne instrumentation has been flown in two previous experiments: the Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange Project (STEP) and the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Expedition (AAOE). The instruments were flown in these earlier experiments to address the objectives defined for the Arctic Ozone Expedition. The field experiment lasted approximately 7-8 weeks from the last week of December 1988 through the middle of February 1989. The time period allowed measurements during the statistically most active period for the formation of Polar Stratospheric Clouds in the Arctic. The DC-8 was deployed at the same time period as the ER-2, with the data from the two aircraft being complementary. Due to its limited range, the ER-2 was not able to survey the entire Arctic region of interest, whereas the greater range of the DC-8 enabled it to survey the polar vortex and air processed through the cold temperature region of the polar vortex. For more information, visit https://espo.nasa.gov/aase.

Project: ACCLIP
New Description: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) conducted a two-month campaign in Summer 2022 in the Republic of Korea: the Asian Summer Monsoon Chemical & CLimate Impact Project (ACCLIP). Two aircraft (the NASA WB-57 and the NCAR G-V), outfitted with state-of-the-art sensors, and approximately 80 scientists from the US and other international research organizations participated in ACCLIP. The Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) is the largest meteorological pattern in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer season. Persistent convection and the large anticyclonic flow pattern in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) associated with ASM leads to a significant enhancement in the UTLS of trace species from pollution and biomass burning origins. The monsoon convection occurs over South, Southeast, and East Asia, a region of uniquely complex and rapidly changing emissions tied to both its high population density and significant economic growth. The coupling of the most polluted boundary layer on Earth to the largest dynamical system in the summer season through the deep monsoon convection has the potential to create significant chemical and climate impacts. An accurate representation of the ASM transport, chemical and microphysical processes in the chemistry-climate models is much needed for characterizing ASM chemistry-climate interactions and for predicting its future impact in a changing climate.

Project: ACTIVATE
New Description: NASA’s Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) project was a five-year project that provided important globally relevant data about changes in marine boundary layer cloud systems, atmospheric aerosols and multiple feedbacks that warm or cool the climate. Marine boundary layer clouds play a critical role in Earth’s energy balance and water cycle. ACTIVATE studied the atmospheric over the western North Atlantic Ocean and sample its broad range of aerosol, cloud and meteorological conditions using two aircraft based at NASA’s Langley Research Center. As an integral part of ACTIVATE, a suite of modeling tools and analysis techniques were employed to inform preflight planning perform data analyses, and climate model uncertainty quantification and improvement.

Project: AJAX
New Description: The NASA Ames Research Center operated a new research platform for atmospheric studies, an instrumented Alpha Jet. The complement of instrumets allowed for the determination of carbon dioxide, ozone, water vapor, and methane concentrations as well as measurements of three-dimensional wind speeds, temperature, and pressure. The Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) was a long-term partnership between NASA's Ames Research Center and H211, L.L.C., facilitating routine in-situ measurements over California, Nevada, and the coastal Pacific in support of satellite validation. AJAX supported NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2/3) and Japan's GOSAT and GOSAT-2 and collaborated with many other research organizations (e.g. CARB, NOAA, USFS, EPA). AJAX celebrated its 200th science flight in 2016, and studies have investigated topics as varied as stratospheric-to-tropospheric transport, forest fire plumes, atmospheric river events, long-range transport of pollution from Asia to the western US, urban outflow, and emissions from gas leaks, oil fields, and dairies.

Project: ARCSIX
New Description: The Arctic Research of the Composition of the Tropsphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) field campaign helped scientists identify how air pollution contributes to climate changes in the Arctic. The campaign had two, three-week deployments conducted in April and July 2008 out of Fairbanks, Alaska. Three NASA research aircraft – the DC-8, P-3, and B-200 – served as airborne laboratories carrying instruments to measure air pollution gases and aerosols and solar radiation. Of particular interest was the formation of the springtime “arctic haze,” which is fueled by sunlight causing chemical reactions of pollutants accumulated over the winter from long-range transport from lower latitudes. Additional information can be found at: https://espo.nasa.gov/arctas.

Project: ASHOE
New Description: In March through November 1994, the NASA ER-2 flew out of Barbers Point, Hawaii, and Christchurch, New Zealand. These flights constituted the ASHOE/MAESA mission. The ASHOE part of the mission was intended to examine the causes of ozone loss in the Southern Hemisphere lower stratosphere to investigate how the loss is related to polar, mid-latitude, and tropical processes.

Project: ATOST
New Description: The Atlantic – THORpex Observing System Test (ATOST) was a test field campaign conducted as a part of an extensive international research program that sought to provide information for use in meteorological forecasting to allow for better responses to severe weather events. ATOST contributed to the EUMETNET Composite Observing System (EUCOS) Programme and The Observing System Research and predictability experiment (THORpex), which both sought to test the hypothesis of whether having additional observations over oceanic storm tracks and other remote areas would improve errors in meteorological forecasting. THORpex was a 10-year Global Atmospheric Research Programme established by the World Meteorological Organization’s Weather Research Program. ATOST ran from October through December 2003, as one of three THORpex Observing System Tests (TOSTs) conducted in that year. These TOSTs served to test different types of observing systems in preparation for the THORpex Global Prediction Campaign. The TOSTs included the experimental and operational use of remote sensing and in-situ observing systems and analyzed the impacts of the use of these systems on data assimilation and forecast creation. ATOST was conducted in winter due to the high potential for severe weather events in the season and the resultant high potential for human impacts from those severe weather events, such as damage to people or property. The geographic focus of ATOST was on the North Atlantic Ocean and Europe. ATOST addressed five science objectives. First, ATOST sought to test and perform real-time adaptive control of multiple observations using multiple platforms to inform future studies and identify potential areas for development in sampling strategies. Second, ATOST sought to predict and study sensitive areas where additional observations would be necessary. ATOST also sought to develop strategies and requirements for potential new observing systems, and to provide starting data to conduct impact studies in the future. Lastly, ATOST sought to observe extra-tropical transitions of tropical cyclones to improve future predictions. ATOST relied on data from an extensive set of platforms, including 600 aircraft provided through the EUMETNET Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay, 13 European ships, and additional radiosonde ascents from European, Eastern U.S., and Canadian stations. Various research aircraft, such as the DLR Falcon, two NOAA P3’s, the NOAA G-4, and the NASA ER-2, provided dropsondes. The European Group on Ocean Stations deployed drifting buoys. Satellite observations, such as those from the EUMETSAT Meteosat-6 and NOAA GOES, were incorporated into ATOST as well. The ASDC houses measurements conducted during ATOST from the Enhanced MODIS Airborne Simulator (eMAS), an airborne scanning spectrometer aboard the NASA ER-2 aircraft used to acquire high spatial resolution imagery of cloud and surface features.

Project: ATTREX
New Description: Small changes in stratospheric water vapor have significant impacts on climate despite having a lower concentration in the atmosphere than greenhouse gases. Understanding the rate at which stratospheric water vapor enters the stratosphere and the rate at which it changes is crucial to understanding how climate in the stratosphere affects the lower atmosphere. The Airborne Tropical TRopopause EXperiment (ATTREX) investigated the atmospheric processes of stratospheric water vapor creation, movement, and deposition through the tropical tropopause. The tropical tropopause is a key area in the study of stratospheric water vapor as it controls the composition of the stratosphere. Researching the controls behind stratospheric humidity is important to improving modeling accuracy in order to predict future climate patterns. Prior to ATTREX, although global modeling accurately represented tropospheric water vapor climate feedback, a lack of understanding surrounded the physical processes controlling the tropical tropopause layer. This lack of understanding caused uncertainty in predictions of future changes in stratospheric humidity and stratospheric ozone. ATTREX addressed these gaps in knowledge to improve climate modeling. Field deployments for ATTREX were conducted in California and Guam from 2011-2014. NASA’s Northrup Grumman Global Hawk was used to collect ATTREX data. This unmanned aircraft is intended for high-altitude, long-duration missions. Equipped with an extensive suite of instruments, the Global Hawk flew at high altitudes to obtain measurements such as trace gas mixing ratio, radiation flux, cloud properties, and meteorological parameters.

by **GCMD - tstevens** » Fri Jan 30, 2026 8:01 am America/New_York

Thank you for your keyword request. We will review it and let you know when it is complete.

by **GCMD - tstevens** » Thu Feb 05, 2026 10:50 am America/New_York

by **ASDC - gmojica** » Thu Feb 05, 2026 11:22 am America/New_York

These look great, thank you!

Forum

GCMD Project Keyword Description Update Request

GCMD Project Keyword Description Update Request

Re: GCMD Project Keyword Description Update Request

Re: GCMD Project Keyword Description Update Request

Re: GCMD Project Keyword Description Update Request