Again Dust and Clouds

Today the dust layer was still obvious from the lidar plot, but the concentration decreased and it seems to be mixed also into the marine boundary layer. We choose a similar flight pattern as the last days: first a vertical profile up to 8000 ft (helicopter height) followed by a horizontal leg for approximately 20 min within the dust layer. Both were done over the sea without any cloud contact. In general, there were no low clouds above the ocean today, but there were nice cumuli over the island (see the picture below).

Thus we went there and dipped ACTOS into them. Some were really thick up to more than 8000 ft and contained a lot of liquid water. We continued cloud chasing for approximately 40 min in height between 5000 and 6000 ft. Before going back to Concorde helipad we went below cloud level for another short horizontal leg. This layer was obviously influenced by biomass burning, the particle concentrations were relatively high and we could also smell it.

After all, another interesting flight giving probably interesting results about the influence of transported dust on trade wind cumulus clouds.