TOGA COARE was a multidisciplinary, international research effort that investigated the scientific phenomena associated with the interaction between the ... atmosphere and the ocean in the warm pool region of the western Pacific. The field experiment phase of the program took place from 1 November 1992 through 28 February 1993 and involved the deployment of oceanographic ships and buoys, several ship and land based Doppler radars, multiple low and high-level aircraft equipped with Doppler radar and other airborne sensors, as well as a variety of surface-based instruments for in-situ observations.
The NASA component of TOGA COARE, while contributing directly to overall COARE objectives, emphasized scientific objectives associated with the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and NASA's cloud and radiation program.
AIRCRAFT
The NASA ER-2 is a high altitude, single pilot aircraft based at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, and deployed globally in support of a variety of atmospheric research projects. It has a maximum altitude of 70,000 feet (21 km), a range of 3000 nautical miles, a maximum flight duration of 8 hours (nominal 6.5 hours) and a top speed of 410 knots true air speed. The aircraft accommodates about 2700 pounds (1200 kg) of payload and offers the following science support systems:
- Inertial navigation - Satellite NBS Time Code receiver - Navigation data recording system - Real-time telemetry data link
For the TOGA COARE campaign, the ER-2 payload consisted of a variety of radiometers, a lidar, a conductivity probe and a camera.
INSTRUMENT INFORMATION
The ER-2 navigation dataset consists of navigation parameters gathered by the aircraft's onboard systems in support of the payload instruments. It includes times and geo-referencing information which can be used to determine temporal and spatial coordinates associated with each measurement collected from the above instruments.
DATA CHARACTERISTICS
The ER-2 navigation dataset contains 18 ASCII files ranging in size from approximately 1 MB to approximately 4 MB with a total volume for the dataset of approximately 27 MB. Each file contains data from one flight, of which 13 were mission flights and 5 were ferry or pilot proficiency flights. The naming convention for the files is er2_X.dat, where X is the flight number.
The following table relates the ER-2 NAV data files to ER-2 and DC-8 flight numbers and to the dates for the 13 mission flights of the NASA/TOGA COARE campaign. The objectives column is included for the convenience of the user; the mission objective was convection when it was forecast in the target area and radiation when it was not.
Jan 11-12 93-053 93-01-06 er2_3.dat Radiation Jan 17-18 93-054 93-01-07 er2_4.dat Convection Jan 18-19 93-055 93-01-08 er2_5.dat Convection Jan 25-26 93-056 93-01-09 er2_6.dat Radiation Jan 31-Feb 1 93-058 93-01-10 er2_8.dat Radiation Feb 4 93-060 93-01-11 er2_10.dat Convection Feb 6 93-01-12 Convection Feb 7 93-061 er2_11.dat Feb 8-9 93-062 93-01-13 er2_12.dat Convection Feb 10-11 93-063 93-01-14 er2_13.dat Convection Feb 17-18 93-01-15 Convection Feb 20-21 93-065 93-01-16 er2_15.dat Convection Feb 22-23 93-066 93-01-17 er2_16.dat Convection Feb 23-24 93-067 93-01-18 er2_17.dat Radiation
Data Format: Each data file contains a header record that is formatted as described in the following table:
TABLE E-6A U2/USER PLUS DIGITIZED ANALOG VALUES HEADER INFORMATION
CHARACTERS CONTENTS ---------- -------- RECORD 1
2 - 7 "FLIGHT" 9 - 14 The flight identifier, which consists of the last two digits of the fiscal year, a dash, and a three digit unique number that identifies the flight within the fiscal year (e.g. 92-001). 17 - 20 "DATE" 22 - 29 The data of the flight at liftoff, in the form MM/DD/YY, where MM gives the number of the month, DD gives the day YY gives the last 2 digits of the current year 32 - 34 "A/C" 36 - 38 Tail number of the aircraft (706, 708 or 709). 41 - 47 "TAKEOFF" 49 - 56 The takeoff time, in the form HH:MM/DD, where HH gives the hour (24-hour clock) MM gives the minute DD gives the day of the month at takeoff. 59 - 62 "LAND" 64 - 71 The landing time, in the same form as "TAKEOFF", except that DD gives the day of the month at landing. 82 - 101 "RECORDER UNIT NUMBER" 103 ID number of the navigation data recorder. 104 - 200 Blank
RECORDS 2 - 5 Title that serves to label the contents of the data records.
NOTE: Characters not explicitly mentioned here are filled with blanks, i.e. the ASCII code for "space".
The data part of each file is formatted as described in the following table:
TABLE E-6B U2/USER PLUS DIGITIZED ANALOG VALUES DATA RECORD FORMAT (English Units)
CHARACTER CONTENTS --------- --------
02 - 12 The time and day, in the form HH:MM:SS/DD, where HH gives the hour (24-hour clock) MM gives the minute SS gives the second DD gives the day of the month. 15 Time source indicator, "G" -- from GOES satellite "I" -- Internal time source 18 - 25 Latitude, hHH:MM.t, as follows: 18 h -- hemisphere, "N" for Northern, or "S" for Southern. 19 - 20 DD -- Degrees of latitude. 21 : -- separator between degrees and minutes. 22 - 25 MM.t -- Minutes and tenths of minutes of latitude, (with a decimal point). 27 - 35 Longitude, hDDD:MM.t, as follows: 27 h -- hemisphere, "W" for Western, or "E" for Eastern 28 - 30 DDD -- Degrees of longitude. 31 : -- separator between degrees and minutes. 32 - 35 MM.t -- Minutes and tenths of minutes of longitude, (with a decimal point). 37 - 41 Altitude, in feet (from 0 - 70000). 42 "space" if below 70000 feet, or "+" if over 70000 feet, (if over 70000 feet, the Altitude (37-41) will contain 70000.) 45 - 47 True Air Speed, in nautical miles per hour. 49 - 53 Aircraft Pitch, in degrees, given to tenths (with a decimal point). Positive indicates nose up. 55 - 59 Aircraft Roll, in degrees, given to tenths (with a decimal point. Positive indicates right roll, i.e. right wing down. 61 - 66 True heading, in degrees, given to tenths (with a decimal Point). Zero degrees indicates North, positive to the East of North. (90 indicates due East; 180 indicates South; and 270 indicates West.) 67 - 72 North-South velocity, in nautical miles per hour. 74 - 77 East-West velocity, in nautical miles per hour. 79 - 82 Vertical velocity, in feet per second. 85 - 87 Ground Speed, in nautical miles per hour. 94 - 96 Computed ground speed, in nautical miles per hour. (Square root of the sum of the squares of the North-South and East-West velocities.) 100 - 103 Computed wind speed, in nautical miles per second. (The vector difference of the True air speed and True heading and North-South and East-West velocities. 107 - 109 Computed wind direction, in degrees from North (clockwise is positive). 113 - 116 Computed vertical velocity (in feet per second). Computed from the altitude difference and time difference between consecutive records. 122 - 124 Computed angle of attack (degrees), i.e. Arcsine. (Vertical velocity divided by ground speed). 134 - 138 Static air temperature in degrees C. Computed from the first digitized analog value, if recorded.
UNITS/SCALES OF THE DAV'S DEPEND UPON THE QUANTITY MEASURED BY EACH DAV 156 - 163 Values for first Digitized Analog Value 164 - 171 Values for second Digitized Analog Value 172 - 179 Values for third Digitized Analog Value 180 - 187 Values for fourth Digitized Analog Value 188 - 200 Blank
NOTES -----
Characters not explicitly mentioned here are filled with blanks. Characters corresponding to parameters that were not recorded during the flight are set to blanks.
The AMPR data processing team has produced .gif images of ER-2 flight tracks for 12 mission flights. The naming convention for these files is "amprft93.XXX_toga_track.gif" where XXX is the Julian day on which the flight took off.
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center
Code 610.2
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
City:
Greenbelt
Province or State:
MD
Postal Code:
20771
Country:
USA
Publications/References
Hicks, B.B., Hosker, R.P., Meyers, T.P., and Womack, J.D. (1991), Dry deposition inferential measurement techniques-I. Design and tests of a prototype meteorological and chemical system for determining dry deposition, Atmospheric Environment, 10, 25A, 2345-2359
Meyers, T.P., Hicks, B.B., Hosker, R.P., Womack, J.D., and Satterfield, L.C. (1991), Dry deposition inferential measurement techniques-II. Seasonal and annual deposition rates of sulfur and nitrate, Atmospheric Environment, 10, 25A, 2361-2370
