Observing the Central Arctic Atmosphere and Surface with University of Colorado uncrewed aircraft systems

Abstract

Over a five-month time window between March and July 2020, scientists deployed two small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) to the central Arctic Ocean as part of legs three and four of the MOSAiC expedition. These sUAS were flown to measure the thermodynamic and kinematic state of the lower atmosphere, including collecting information on temperature, pressure, humidity and winds between the surface and 1 km, as well as to document ice properties, including albedo, melt pond fraction, and open water amounts. The atmospheric state flights were primarily conducted by the DataHawk2 sUAS, which was operated primarily in a profiling manner, while the surface property flights were conducted using the HELiX sUAS, which flew grid patterns, profiles, and hover flights. In total, over 120 flights were conducted and over 48 flight hours of data were collected, sampling conditions that included temperatures as low as −35 °C and as warm as 15 °C, spanning the summer melt season.

A central arctic extreme aerosol event triggered by a warm air-mass intrusion

“…Boundary layer height. Boundary layer height (BLH) was calculated using meteorological profiles from radiosondes, which were launched at least four times per day from the stern deck of the Polarstern throughout the entire MOSAiC year 89 and the DataHawk2 (DH2) uncrewed aircraft system 90 , which was flown during legs 3 and 4 of MOSAiC (March -July 2020) whenever weather and airspace criteria were met 91 . Between 00:00 on 13 April and 00:00 on 18 April, 2020, 32 radiosondes were launched and 8 DH2 flights were conducted.…”

The DataHawk2 uncrewed aircraft system for atmospheric research

“…5. Visualizations of the comparison data presented in Table 2 can be found in de Boer et al (2022b).…”

“…Due to their rugged nature and relative expendability, UASs have become a valuable tool for research in extreme environments, where they can help evaluate models and augment data from other sources, as was done on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica (Wille et al, 2017). Most recently, UASs have blended the latter two uses during MOSAiC -an icebreaker-based, multidisciplinary Arctic research campaign -where they helped extend the reach of more traditional measurement techniques (de Boer et al, 2022b).…”

“…The DH2 UAS falls into the same smaller sUAS class as the SUMO -with a wingspan of 1.3 m, a weight of 1.7 kg, and an airspeed ranging from 10-20 m s −1 -and has also been used in field deployments spanning a variety of geographical regimes, including Japan during ShUREX (Kantha et al, 2017), Utah during the IDEAL campaign , Colorado during the LAPSE-RATE campaign (de Boer et al, 2020(de Boer et al, , 2021, northern Alaska during the POP-EYE and ERASMUS campaigns (de Boer et al, 2018(de Boer et al, , 2019, and on Legs 3 and 4 of MOSAiC in the high Arctic (de Boer et al, 2022b). Like the SUMO, the DH2 is able to carry a variety of instruments tailored to investigating specific phenomena, but it has a long flight time (approximately 60 min) for an aircraft of its size, and it is exceptionally durable.…”

“…The DH2 relies on a custom-developed autopilot and data-logging system that offers significant opportunity for customization and modification to support specific sampling objectives. An example of such customization was the addition of a dual-GPSbased heading solution for high-Arctic operations near the magnetic North Pole during the MOSAiC project ( de Boer et al, 2022b). The costs for a fully equipped DH2 exceed the airframe cost (sensors add about USD 1000), and customizations such as the dual-GPS system can also add cost (the most recent version of this system is about USD 500).…”