Aerosols in the stratosphere (one of the upper layers of the atmosphere) affect the Earth’s albedo by interacting with solar radiation. The stratosphere is also home to the ozone layer, which shields the Earth’s surface from UV radiation from the sun. Aerosol particles in the stratosphere provide surfaces for chemical reactions, including reactions with ozone. It is important that we understand the abundance and properties of aerosols in the stratosphere so that we can properly account for their influence on climate, and to understand how current or future human activities might change that.
We recently measured aerosols and trace gases in the stratosphere on a set of flights as part of the Stratospheric Aerosol processes, Budget and Radiative Effects (SABRE) mission. This was conducting with the NASA WB-57, a high-altitude research aircraft. On this aircraft, we load our scientific instruments into pallets that become part of the body of the plane, and they are flown up into the stratosphere by NASA’s stratonaughts, a pilot and a back-seater (who operates the instrument controls in flight) wearing specialized suits to cope with the low pressures at these high altitudes.
This set of flights was mainly about testing instrumentation that we have built specially or modified to cope with the high altitudes in preparation for more science flights in the future. The data are of course interesting scientifically and we look forward to analysing them in the coming months.
