Singapore Arrival

We made it into Changi International Airport in Singapore without a hitch after 21 hours of flight time this evening. We swore we were going to stay awake throughout the duration of the journey since by the time we got in here it'd be 1am and it'd just feel like a whoppingly long day, but we all caved on the final flight from Tokyo for a couple hours. Luckily we're at the Crowne Plaza hotel right in the airport so we didn't have to spend another hour navigating a new city for our lodging.

Up tomorrow around 10am (see local clocks on the left) to check out the downtown area; flying out to Diego Garcia on Monday!

-Gavin

Prying our eyes open at the Singapore baggage claim

The Emm Jay Oh

Main Features

Gibberish: "The Madden–Julian Oscillation is the largest element of the intraseasonal variability in the tropical atmosphere . . . is a large-scale coupling between atmospheric circulation and tropical deep convection" - Wikipedia

Translation: The MJO is a very large cluster of thunderstorm activity that can cover the entire tropical Indian Ocean basin at a single time. It moves eastward at (a whopping) 10 mph, which, together with the immense size of the MJO associated weather patterns, means that it takes roughly 50 days for the entire MJO to pass over a certain location.

Teleconnections
Gibberish: MJO tropospheric wind anomalies and poleward-radiating Rossby wave trains emitted from the MJO deep convective heat source can modify mid-latitude storm track, the onset and intensity of El Niño–Southern Oscillation, and the frequency of tropical cyclones.

Translation: Owing to a complex array of feedbacks between MJO thunderstorm activity and its surrounding environment (e.g., heating from condensation of rain), there is a large-scale wind pattern associated with the MJO that can be summarized as an overturning, with upward motion in the thunderstorm region. The components of this MJO flow pattern modify other atmospheric phenomena, including hurricanes, El Niño–Southern Oscillation, regional monsoons, and mid-latitude weather patterns. The figure to the right (taken from Wiki) shows how the MJO can result in heavy rain and flooding for the west coast of the US.

Current Understanding

Gibberish: Modeling and observational studies have demonstrated that an MJO-type convective anomaly is strongly dependent on the availability of moist static energy, and so processes associated with moisture transport, including sea-surface fluxes and horizontal advection, are vital to the maintenance of the MJO convective envelope.

Translation: The MJO thunderstorm cluster needs moisture (seems simple, doesn't it?). Though this concept is trivial, the concept of a large-scale thunderstorm cluster such as the MJO, including the vital processes controlling it's propagation and initiation remain somewhat of a mystery despite now several decades of intensive research by institutions across the globe. Hence the DYNAMO field campaign.

The Bottom Line . . .
The MJO modifies weather and climate locally (e.g., regions under direct impact of the MJO weather features) and remotely through a variety of complex teleconnections. These impacts, which are felt to one degree or another over most of the planet, deem it necessary to improve understanding of the MJO dynamic processes so that computer model forecasts of short-term weather as well as forecasts of future climate can be improved.

What's the scene in the Indian Ocean? DYNAMO is on it.

-Rupulin

Leg One

• Thursday, 9/29, 5:50am MDT: House pickup in Fort Collins by Denver airport shuttle
• Thursday, 9/29, 9:47am MDT: Takeoff, Denver to Los Angeles (2.5 hours)
• Thursday, 9/29, 12:55pm PDT: Takeoff, Los Angeles to Tokyo (11.5 hours), arriving 4:35pm Japan time on following day
• Friday, 9/30, 5:55pm JDT: Takeoff, Tokyo to Singapore (7 hours), arriving 11:55pm Singapore time. Not having seen a sunset on 9/29 or the following sunrise, our September 30 will "last" only seven hours.
• Monday, 10/3, 8:30am SDT: Fantasy Hockey draft, which will concurrently be taking place at 6:30pm the previous Sunday night back in Colorado
• Monday, 10/3, Late morning - Evening: Takeoff, Singapore to Diego Garcia (6 hours), classified military flight via civilian clearance

When we arrive in Diego Garcia we will start balloon launches almost immediately, every three hours through the night and day. Curious to see how we'll end up scheduling our shift changes. We will also be exactly twelve hours ahead of Mountain Time (+06 UTC), which will be convenient for figuring out communication via Skype among other things.

-Gavin

Ghosts of a Troubled Past

I promised an update on the (rather dark) history of Diego Garcia before shipping out. I will preface this with a bit of subtext though. According to the principal investigators of DYNAMO, this is the very first time that a meteorology field campaign is being allowed to take place on the island. We are trying to make a good impression so that we can continue coming back in the future, since this area of the world is considerably bereft of important upper-air observations for the understanding of tropical climate dynamics.

We were warned not to blog/tweet/post about military operations, take photos of aircraft, etc. And I'm somewhat reluctant to write something that might be viewed unfavorably by the British military... however, history is history, and I feel that it's important to understand what we'll be dipping our feet into. So rather than explicitly writing about what occurred on Diego Garcia in the 1960's and 70's, I'll point you instead to this article from the Guardian.

Certainly the ghosts of a troubled past will make for an unusual vibe as we are stationed on this beautiful, remote island.

-Gavin

Purpose

This blog post is a brief introduction to the objectives and details of our trip in the language of acronyms (the preferred language of atmospheric scientists and medical professionals). A useful but not complete list of acronyms includes:

NCAR/EOL – National Center for Atmospheric Research / Earth Observing Laboratory

Federal agency funding our research experience to observe the MJO.

MJO – Madden-Julian Oscillation

A 30-90 day oscillation of winds and precipitation that originates in the tropical Indian Ocean, propagates eastward at approximately 5m/s, and will be studied by DYNAMO.

DYNAMO – DYNAmics of the MJO

The name of the US field campaign purposed to collect data on the MJO that is a subset of CINDY2011.

CINDY2011 – Cooperative INDian Ocean Experiment on Intraseasonal Variability in Year 2011

Broader international field campaign composed of Australia, India, Japan, and the US to collect observations in the Indian Ocean involving two islands, 3 research ships, 2 research airplanes, moored buoys, and a plethora of weather radars and ISSs .

ISS – Integrated Sounding System

A mobile observing unit (a trailer) that primarily houses a radiosonde balloon sounding system (weather balloons) among other atmosphere observing instruments. We will be releasing weather balloons and monitoring data quality (wind speed, temperature, humidity, etc.) during the SOP.

SOP – Special Observing Period.

Name given to the time period during which we will be sampling the atmosphere using weather balloons released every three hours on DG.

DG – Diego Garcia

Future and temporary island home to RRR.

RRR – Gavin Roy, James Ruppert, and Adam Rydbeck

My apologies for the long preface, but the purpose of our trip can now be presented succinctly.

Purpose:

During the SOP, NCAR/EOL will be sending RRR to observe the MJO through the DYNAMO portion of CINDY2011 using an ISS on DG.

-Adam