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