The Maritime to Inland Transitions Towards ENvironments for Convection Initiation (MITTEN-CI) Campaign

The evolution of the marine atmospheric boundary layer as it advects inland during the warm season has substantial impacts on convection initiation (CI) or failure thereof in the Great Lakes coastal environment. Understanding such transitions and their convective implications has substantial broader impacts, given the significant portion of the human population that lives in coastal areas. The National Science Foundation-funded Maritime to Inland Transitions Towards ENvironments for Convection Initiation (MITTEN-CI) campaign was conducted in July 2024, with the goal of developing an extensive dataset capable of characterizing this transition. Over-lake thermodynamic and kinematic profiles were observed by Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS), while sampling of boundary layer spatial and temporal variability over land was observed by a 120 km long shore-perpendicular transect including six flux towers, two mobile mesonets, multiple radiosonde launch sites, a Doppler LiDAR, and two mobile Ka-band Doppler radars. This dataset enables hypothesis testing that will result in new knowledge of processes that support the development of instability maxima on the cool side of lake-breeze front (LBF), the potential for diffuse LBFs to exist embedded within synoptic-scale onshore flow and influence CI, the prevalence of misovortices at intersections of horizontal convective rolls and the LBF, RKW theory’s relation to the vertical structure of the LBF, and the influence of entrainment on the thermodynamics, structure, and propagation of the planetary boundary layer behind and ahead of the lake breeze front. This talk will provide an overview of the MITTEN-CI campaign, in addition to discussion of some of the unique data sampled.