Measuring Boundary Layer CO2 with Unmanned Aerial System

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations in the atmospheric boundary layer have been demonstrated to have strong regional, diurnal, and seasonal fluctuations that are influenced by industry, crop health, land usage, and fossil fuel consumption. Traditional sampling methods for CO₂ such as flask collection, manned aircraft, ground stations, and satellites, have not historically been able to provide data with adequate vertical and horizontal resolution (on the order of meters) in the atmospheric boundary layer to fully understand local and high temporal (on the order of seconds) variations. Advances in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) make them an appealing option for a low-cost, rugged vehicle to probe the atmospheric boundary layer. Through the integration of widely available and low cost non-dispersive infrared CO₂ sensors (Senseair K30-FR) onto UAS, we are now able to measure CO₂ at higher spatial and temporal resolution. This presentation will highlight results from a series of field deployments of UAS (fixed wing and rotocraft) equipped with a CO₂ sampling system. The results presented come from observations made during deployments at the Kessler Atmospheric and Ecological Research Farm (KAEFS) in Washington, Oklahoma over the course of several months. This data set is supplemented by winter measurements completed during the Innovative Strategies for Observations in the Arctic Atmospheric Boundary Layer (ISOBAR) campaign in Hailuoto, Finland in February 2018 and measurements from the Lower Atmospheric Process Studies at Elevation - a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE) in Colorado in July 2018. In addition to providing information about local (including over different vegetation types), diurnal, and seasonal variations of CO2, measurements from UAS can provide evaluation and benchmarking for satellite observations, Earth System Models.