Measurements of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer and Upper Ocean from the NOAA WP-3D in DYNAMO

The aircraft component of the Dynamic of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (DYNAMO) took place near the tropical Indian Ocean between Nov 13 and Dec 13, 2011, based at the remote island of Diego Garcia. A total of 12 flights were made, 10 of which were full 8-9 hour research flights. The first and last flights of the 12 were shorter flights for initial instrument testing and for final instrument calibration and intercomparison. Measurements from the NOAA P-3 include flight-level state and thermodynamics variables, turbulence and high-rate temperature and water vapor perturbations, cloud microphysics, atmospheric radiation, surface imaging and waves, and convective activities from the vertical-scanning Doppler radar and the fuselage horizontally scanning radar. Measurements of the NOAA P-3 also include air expendables such as GPS windfinding dropsondes, Airborne eXpendable Bathy Thermographs (AXBT) and Airborne eXpendable Conductivity Temperature and Depth probes (AXCTD) for co-located and simultaneous atmospheric and oceanic profiling. This presentation will focus on the atmospheric boundary layer characteristics observed during the DYNAMO aircraft field campaign from flight-level measurements as well as dropsonde measurements. The major characteristics of the lower atmosphere in the suppressed and active phases of MJO will be examined and the boundary layer characteristics near convective systems will be discussed. The corresponding variability of the upper ocean and the sea surface temperature will also be discussed in the context of the coupled evolution of the tropical Indian Ocean.