A Multi-Institution Collaborative: Student Experience in Airborne Research in the Mid-Atlantic Region (SEAR-MAR)

The Multi-Institution Collaborative: Student Experience in Airborne Research in the Mid-Atlantic Region (SEAR-MAR) was funded by the National Science Foundation to engage students in authentic research and research training using the UWKA as the instrumented observing system. Over 100 undergraduate and graduate students and eight scientists-educators from four partnering mid-Atlantic universities participated in a two-week, 40 flight-hour deployment of the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) airborne observational platform from 4-18 NOV 2017. The participating universities were Millersville University, Pennsylvania State University, The State University of New Jersey - Rutgers, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. The domain stretched across a 200-300 km wide swath of the mid-Atlantic region from the western slopes of the Pennsylvania Appalachians to the New Jersey coastal zone and centered roughly on Lancaster, PA. The UWKA and Wyoming ground operations were located at the Lancaster (PA) Airport (KLNS), about 12 miles from the Millersville University campus, and near the geographic center of the study area.

As an educational deployment, the purpose of SEAR-MAR was to provide a locus for immersive undergraduate and graduate student engagement in airborne research. In all, 48 students took advantage of the opportunity to fly missions. Courses were modified to incorporate elements of the project such as the scientific objectives and measurement techniques into the instructional discourse. The scientific objectives were selected from the atmospheric phenomena that captured our combined interests and were likely to be observed based on November climatology in the mid-Atlantic region and were experimentally feasible for study by an instrumented airborne platform. While each scientific mission was designed around the use of the UWKA as the primary facility, each of the participating universities contributed their own ground-based and/or upper air instruments for in situ and remote sensing measurements, which further enhanced and expanded the overall capability and involved additional students in the project. Students were intimately involved in all aspects of the scientific missions ranging from the experimental design, leading the daily forecasts and meetings, and developing skills in assembling, operating, maintaining, calibrating, and analyzing data from multiple sensors. In all, SEAR-MAR consisted of 15 intensive operating periods using a total of 40 flight-hours and five test flights. The science missions included: clear air profiling for comparison with ground sites; emissions up- and downwind of Philadelphia, PA; boundary layer structure across the coastal transition; aircraft calibration maneuvers to determine static pressure defect; ocean-bay-land boundary layer characterization; topographically-forced cold pools and the northerly low-level jet; mountain waves; emissions profiles around coal mines;, emissions profiles over natural gas wells; mid-level frontogenesis; fine structure of fronts; and cold air damming.

This presentation will discuss the deployment, preliminary results emerging from the scientific analysis, educational benefits and direct student participation, and outreach activities to K-12 schools and groups, all of which were made possible by the SEAR-MAR project.