Cloud and Precipitation Measurements Planned Within The NASA Earth System Observatory – Atmosphere Observing System (AOS)

[13-Dec-2022]
Abstract: NASA's new Earth System Observatory (ESO) will provide key information related to understanding climate change processes, mitigating natural hazards, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. Precipitation is a critical factor in many of these issues, but understanding precipitation processes also requires knowledge of related cloud and aerosol distributions and properties. The Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) constellation is designed to address these coupled processes by focusing on two of the five designated observables of the 2017 NASA Earth Science Decadal Survey: aerosols and clouds, convection, and precipitation (CCP). AOS is made up of two projects, one in an inclined orbit and the other in a polar, sun synchronous orbit, with both projects addressing synergistic aerosol and CCP science. The constellation is expected to deliver collocated dynamics and cloud/precipitation profiles, global and diurnally varying observations of convective vertical air motions, and short time-scale evolution of cloud and precipitation processes. This talk will describe the science objectives of AOS and the mission architecture, with a focus on the precipitation measurement capabilities of the constellation.