Airborne Platforms to Advance NASA Earth System Science Priorities Assessing the Future Need for a Large Aircraft (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Better information is needed for understanding the impacts of short-term disruptions, such as extreme weather, flooding, wildland fires, air quality, and volcanic eruptions, and for responding to longterm challenges such as climate change and related impacts to ecosystems, sea level rise, meteorological patterns, and stratospheric ozone. These and other societal imperatives drove the identification of science priorities and observing needs recommended in the most recent (2017)
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The committee will organize a community workshop at which attendees will be asked to present specific examples of how airborne platforms could make unique and/or optimal contributions to integrated (satellite/airborne/surface/modeling) approaches to answering the science questions posed in the 2017 ESAS Decadal Survey, with a special emphasis on large platforms (e.g., those that can carry multiple instruments and investigators for their onboard operation)
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For each area, the committee considered the role of large and small aircraft, the types of variables to be measured, the contribution of newly available airborne platforms such as UAS and advanced technology balloons, and the support that airborne platforms provide for satellite calibration and validation, computer model testing, instrument development, and workforce training and development. Key conclusions from this analysis in each of the science areas include: • Coupling of the water and energy cycles: Advancing understanding of the terrestrial water cycle requires observations collected at multiple spatial and temporal scales, which can be conducted on small, agile aircraft that are able to acquire measurements over a range of altitudes, at different flight speeds, and at multiple times of day.
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With new satellite capabilities coming online in the next decade, a strong airborne science capability within the integrated observing system that includes a large aircraft is needed for multi-instrument payloads to measure detailed atmospheric composition. • Ecosystem change -- land and ocean: Future airborne research for ecosystems, including interdisciplinary science, will incorporate multi-instrument, multi investigator deployments that will require a large aircraft's heavy lift and size capacity, and some missions will likely require long duration.
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Similarly, as wildland fire frequency and intensity increase, it is critical to integrate the understanding of fire behavior, atmospheric chemistry, dynamics and circulation in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) , and the land surface to facilitate development of new tools for improving fire and air quality forecasts, fire management, and public safety and health.
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A Large Aircraft Is Needed for Innovative Approaches to Multi-instrument Remote Sensing Without a large aircraft, the potential is diminished for innovative approaches to integrated research for ecosystem change -- land and ocean; surface dynamics, geological hazards, and disasters; and sea level rise in a changing climate and coastal impacts. Potential use of a large aircraft is envisioned to address some key questions in these research areas, especially those that require multisensor measurements or occur in remote regions.
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Having a large aircraft provides essential capacity in terms of heavy lift and long duration to respond to future unexpected environmental events, thus shortening the time to mitigation. Recommendation 1: NASA should acquire, maintain, and operate a large aircraft as part of its aircraft fleet in order to address priority questions developed for the 2017 Earth Science and Applications from Space Decadal Survey and to support satellite
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THE BROADER NASA AIRCRAFT FLEET A new large aircraft is a necessary member of the NASA fleet, but it is only one key contributor to the diverse array of airborne platforms that are needed to address the variety of Earth system science objectives as prioritized in ESAS. Airborne platforms with diverse specifications of payload, range, altitude, onboard pilot, and operational
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Recommendation 3: NASA should continue operating a diverse array of airborne platforms in addition to a large aircraft, as part of the broader government, university, and commercial fleet, in order to meet the evolving airborne needs for advancing Earth system science research. PRIORITIZING AND ENABLING INTERDISCIPLINARY EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE RESEARCH USING A LARGE AIRCRAFT High-impact weather, climate, and geophysical extreme events are usually the results of complex interactions of various processes either within or among different components of the Earth system and they have large impacts on society, as highlighted by the ESAS integrating themes.
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It is also possible to imagine benefits of using multiple remote sensing surface measurements from a single large aircraft for research in ecosystem change, high-impact weather and coastal flooding, surface dynamics, and geological hazards in a changing climate and rising seas. Currently, airborne remote sensing of Earth's surface is accomplished using aircraft smaller than the DC-8 for several reasons: with the miniaturization of remote sensing instruments, a large payload is not needed; incompatible observing requirements for some combinations of remote sensing instruments on a large aircraft have made a combined payload undesirable; the DC-8's large operating costs exceed available budgets; large, multi-investigator projects in some science areas, such as ecosystems, have not needed the DC-8 during the past 15 years; and the perception that the DC-8 would not be available impeded requests.
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Recommendation 5: NASA is encouraged to build on the training and outreach opportunities it has established using the DC-8 and use a future large aircraft to expand its efforts to attract, develop, and train the next-generation workforce, with particular emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion, to foster capacity to conduct international Earth system science research, and to inform the public. Future advancement of NASA airborne Earth system science research depends on a continual emergence of early career scientists to develop new measurement concepts, to make measurements, and to eventually take over field study leadership roles currently held by more senior scientists.
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