The California State University Mobile Atmospheric Profiling System: A Facility for Research and Education in Boundary Layer Meteorology

Abstract

The California State University Mobile Atmospheric Profiling System (CSU-MAPS) is a shared facility between San Francisco and San José State Universities providing researchers and students state-of-the-art atmospheric profiling measurements that require fast deployments and ease of use. CSU-MAPS is intended for boundary layer field research and comprises a suite of commercially available instruments including micrometeorological sensors mounted on a 32-m extendable tower trailer, a scanning Doppler wind lidar, a microwave temperature–humidity profiler, and upper-air sounding systems. The trailer is towed using a Ford F250 4 × 4 truck equipped with surface weather instrumentation and workstations for operating the lidar and microwave profiler. The flexible design of the measurement system allows for a large range of important research projects to be tackled. To date, the system has been used in four major field experiments. During 2011, CSU-MAPS was deployed to Salt Lake City, Utah, to investigate the behavior of persistent cold-air pools that lead to weeklong periods of extremely poor air quality that frequently exceed national health standards. In 2012, CSU-MAPS was deployed to three wildfire experiments in California, Florida, and Texas. CSU-MAPS has also been used to measure carbon, water, and energy cycling between ecosystems and the atmosphere. In addition, the system has been extensively used as an educational tool. This includes an annual field trip where students from both San José and San Francisco State Universities deploy the system in a mountain valley over the period of a week and analyze the data.