Aerosol Characteristics In A Coastal Region Results From Maptip

In coastal areas, the simplifying assumptions of horizontal homogeneity used in open ocean analysis are not always useable. Various human-generated aerosol sources such as towns and industrial centers can provide a complex portrait of merging plumes of non-natural aerosols which are advected out to the littoral zones. The extensive meteorological and aerosol measurements made during the Marine Aerosol Properties and Thermal Imager Performance (MAPTIP) experiment provided an ideal opportunity to view how these aerosol were advected from their sources to the littoral zone of the North Sea. MAPTIP was conducted along the Dutch coast in October/November 1993. The NCCOSC, RDT & E DIV (NRaD) instrumented Navajo aircraft flew two star pattern flights a day during the experiment at altitudes below 500 feet. During these flights, aerosol size distribution measurements along the flight path were being continuously recorded. These measurements were utilized for making aerosol concentration maps of the various sized aerosol groups. This paper shows the mesoscale effects of aerosol advection making the marine boundary layer in a littoral zone much more complicated than that of an open ocean.