Updated: 13 July 2018
The Southern California Ozone Observation Project (SCOOP) campaign took place at the JPL Table Mountain Facility (TMF) on August 10-16, 2018. Taking advantage of a favorable field deployment calendar, all four TOLNet mobile lidars were brought to the fixed TOLNet site of JPL-Table Mountain Facility for this one-week-long lidar intercomparison campaign, during which 18 ozonesondes were also launched. This thorough validation of both the measurements and retrievals has now given the needed confidence in the high quality and reliability of the TOLNet ozone lidar profiles for many years to come, making TOLNet a very valuable ground-based reference network for tropospheric ozone profiling.
The SCOOP Campaign hosted the Canadian-based Autonomous Mobile Ozone Lidar for Tropospheric Experiments (AMOLITE), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Mobile Ozone Lidar (LMOL), the JPL-Table Mountain Tropospheric Ozone Lidar (TMTOL), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Tunable Optical Profiler for Aerosol and oZone Lidar (TOPAZ), and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center mobile Tropospheric Ozone Lidar (TROPOZ).
All lidar systems were ready and operational for the official kick-off of the campaign on August 11, 2016 (UT). The campaign was expected to finish on August 17 (UT), but a local wild fire triggered a one-day premature end to the campaign due to the mandatory evacuation of TMF. The SCOOP campaign therefore officially ended on August 16, 2016 at 2300 UT.
Two mobile lidars (TOPAZ and TROPOZ) were deployed at the TMF core facility (2285-m a.s.l.) next to the JPL lidar building TM-21 (where TMTOL operates), and the other two mobile lidars (AMOLITE and LMOL) were deployed at the so-called TM-2 Facility (2270-m a.s.l.), an annex to TMF located approximately a quarter mile east-southeast of TM-21. This deployment configuration allowed the LMOL and AMOLITE lidars to operate next to each other (distance of 20 meters between the two systems) without cross-talk, and allowed LMOL to operate simultaneously with TOPAZ without cross-talk despite similar wavelengths. At the TM-21 location, the TOPAZ system operating at the highest frequency (1000 Hz) provided a master trigger to the TROPOZ (50 Hz) and TMTOL (30 Hz) systems, allowing full synchronization and simultaneous operations of the 3 systems without cross-talk.
The operational campaign schedule was designed to spread the lidar measurements over all times of the day and night, over the course of one week. The AMOLITE lidar is automated and acquired measurements nearly 24/7. The other four lidars followed a pre-defined incremental measurement schedule, with more hours each day as the campaign progressed:
- August 10-11 (UT): 2 hours, early night
- August 11-12 (UT): 6 hours spread from midday to evening/early night
- August 12-13 (UT): 8 hours spread from late night/early morning to midday
- August 13-14 (UT): 12 hours spread from midday to midnight
- August 14-15 (UT): Rest day
- August 15-16 (UT): 18 hours spread from late night/early morning to evening/early night
- August 16-17 (UT): 24 hours spread from midday to midday next day (truncated by evacuation)
The above schedule defined the minimum requirement of SCOOP coordinated measurements. Most lidar instruments actually operated beyond the minimum requirement, leading to several hundreds of cumulated hours.
In support of the SCOOP campaign, 17 Electrochemical Concentration Cell (ECC) ozonesondes were launched from the site between August 10 and August 17. The ozonesonde launch times were tailored to match the needs of the SCOOP campaign, with a number of launches ranging from a minimum of 1 launch per day on Aug 10 and Aug 11 (UT) to a maximum of six launches (one launch every 2 hours) on August 15-16 (UT). All the lidar measurements and launches planned on August 17 (UT) were cancelled due to the mandatory site evacuation order.
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