Good morning readers. I have been quiet for some time. This Blog has been very good to me; it has connected me to the media, it has been a wonderful tool for science outreach and it also has made some wonderful lasting records of my adventures! Well it is time to resurrect this blog! Why? for the first time in 11 years I am going into the field for a field campaign! I am a co-investigator on the deployment of the ARM User Facility’s Mobile Facility (aka AMF) for a deployment called the TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment or TRACER! This quote from the ARM article featuring Brookhaven’s Mike Jensen says it best: “Ultrafine liquid and solid atmospheric aerosol particles are needed to form cloud droplets. In Houston, aerosols come from a variety of sources, including factories, car exhaust, rural soils, and sea spray.”

We are in TRACER to study these interactions. I have a number of roles in the campaign. With Mike, TTU’s Eric Bruning and NASA’s Alex Kotsakis I lead the forecasting efforts. I am also one of the rotating Mission Scientists who make operational decisions regarding the facility’s operation. Sunday I will be flying to Houston for a seven day tour of duty. In addition to being Mission Scientist for that time I will be fully immersed (operationally aware to use an old Bureau of Meteorology (Australia) forecasting term) in the weather of Houston. I also want to draw attention to the amazing instruments ARM deploys in my new role as ARM’s Workforce Development Coordinator (WDC).

Stay tuned as I head south to get my head in the clouds. More DOE Climate Science and ARM geekering coming soon!