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TexAQS 2006 TOPAZ Lidar data

September 1 - Final Data


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Flight #18
Takeoff: 14:10 CDT
Total flight time: 5.2 hours

During the morning, a west-northwesterly land breeze transported pollutants from the Houston, Ship Channel, and Texas City areas over Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. An early onset of the bay and sea breeze around 12:00 CDT pushed the pollutants back over the source areas resulting in very high ozone levels. Several CAMS surface stations in the Houston metro area registered hourly averages above 150 ppb of ozone and the Ron Brown measured up to 180 ppb of ozone in Galveston Bay. The Twin Otter flew several N-S transects over Galveston Bay, the Ship Channel, and areas southeast of Houston. The Twin Otter operation was restricted to these areas due to convective clouds north of Galveston Bay and west of Houston. Generally high ozone values were observed during the entire flight with particularly high levels approaching 200 ppb over the western portion of Galveston Bay, the Ship Channel, and in a plume southeast of Texas City. The Twin Otter overflew the Ron Brown in the Galveston Bay shipping lane. The boundary layer extended to about 1500 to 1800 m MSL; above it, a 1000 m deep layer with high aerosol and moderately high ozone loading was observed.

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Ozone Cross-section
Ozone cross-section - September 1
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Aerosol Cross-section
Aerosol cross-section - September 1
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download simple ASCII data (txt file)
Ozone Map
Ozone map - September 1