Studying Aerosol, Clouds, and Air Quality in the Coastal Urban Environment of Southeastern Texas

Abstract A multi-agency succession of field campaigns was conducted in southeastern Texas during July 2021 through October 2022 to study the complex interactions of aerosols, clouds and air pollution in the coastal urban environment. As part of the Tracking Aerosol Convection interactions Experiment (TRACER), the TRACER- Air Quality (TAQ) campaign the Experiment of Sea Breeze Convection, Aerosols, Precipitation and Environment (ESCAPE) and the Convective Cloud Urban Boundary Layer Experiment (CUBE), a combination of ground-based supersites and mobile laboratories, shipborne measurements and aircraft-based instrumentation were deployed. These diverse platforms collected high-resolution data to characterize the aerosol microphysics and chemistry, cloud and precipitation micro- and macro-physical properties, environmental thermodynamics and air quality-relevant constituents that are being used in follow-on analysis and modeling activities. We present the overall deployment setups, a summary of the campaign conditions and a sampling of early research results related to: (a) aerosol precursors in the urban environment, (b) influences of local meteorology on air pollution, (c) detailed observations of the sea breeze circulation, (d) retrieved supersaturation in convective updrafts, (e) characterizing the convective updraft lifecycle, (f) variability in lightning characteristics of convective storms and (g) urban influences on surface energy fluxes. The work concludes with discussion of future research activities highlighted by the TRACER model-intercomparison project to explore the representation of aerosol-convective interactions in high-resolution simulations.

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Publication Details

Journal
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Published
2025-08-04
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1175/bams-d-23-0331.1
Citations
3
Primary Topic
Wind and Air Flow Studies
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
2.40
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article

Studying Aerosol, Clouds, and Air Quality in the Coastal Urban Environment of Southeastern Texas

Yuezhi Li, Alyssa Matthews, Harold Gamarro, Maxwell Grover et al.
3 citations
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Wind and Air Flow Studies
2.40
article

Studying Aerosol, Clouds, and Air Quality in the Coastal Urban Environment of Southeastern Texas

Yuezhi Li, Alyssa Matthews, Harold Gamarro, Maxwell Grover, Kelly A. Lombardo, Zeen Zhu, Rebecca J. Sheesley, Karen Johnson, O. L. Mayol‐Bracero, Joshin Kumar, Gijs de Boer, Ruşen Öktem, Eric C. Bruning, Timothy J. Wagner, Don Collins, Kelcy N. Brunner, Yan Feng, Tamanna Subba, Arthur J. Sedlacek, Stephen M. Saleeby, Zackary Mages, Heath Powers, J. Minnie Park, Anita D. Rapp, Katia Lamer, Doug Boyer, Sarah Dickerson Brooks, Travis Griggs, Ann M. Fridlind, Ryan Farley, John T. Sullivan, Toshihisa Matsui, Joseph Galewsky, Laura Judd, Taylor Shingler, Scott Edward Giangrande, Elizabeth Spicer, Mark Spychala, Marisa Storm, Swarup China, Ya‐Chien Feng, Jiaxi Hu, Christopher D. Cappa, Laurence Twigg, Elena Spinei, Guillaume Gronoff, Andrew M. Dzambo, Manisha Mehra, Brian Butterworth, David M. Romps, Timothy Logan, Scott Collis, Matthew R. Kumjian, Lance Wood, Aryeh J. Drager, Siddhant Gupta, Pavlos Kollias, Adam K. Theisen, Samuel Gardner, Virendra P. Ghate, Tyler Bell, Jian Wang, Brianna H. Matthews, Yongjie Huang, David M. Oaks, Prathap Ramamurthy, Sean Crowell, Chun-Ying Chao, Maria A. Zawadowicz, Petra Klein, Rachael Dal Porto, Subin Yoon, Qi Zhang, Montana Etten‐Bohm, Greg M. McFarquhar, Richard F. Ferrare, Ron Li, Elizabeth Smith, Katherine E. McKeown, Mariko Oue, Francesca M. Lappin, Sabin Kasparoǧlu, James N. Smith, Michael H. Young, Marta Fenn, Jeffrey C. Snyder, Maurice Roots, Scott M. Smith, Rajan K. Chakrabarty, Christopher J. Nowotarski, Paul Walter, Alexander Kotsakis, Erik R. Nielsen, Robert Jackson, Rebecca Trojanowski, Adam C. Varble, Michael P. Jensen, Alexandra Ulinski, Edward Luke, Daniel Rosenfeld, Marcus van Lier‐Walqui, Ashish Kumar Singh, Zihan Zhu, Ziying Lei, A. C. Aiken, J. W. Hair, Brian Argrow, Nathan A. Wales, Mengistu Wolde, Daniel B. Phoenix, Fan Mei, Dié Wang, Janek Uin, Susan C. van den Heever, Nadia Partida, Jing Li, Yuxuan Wang, Bo Chen, Jorge E. González, Sujan Shrestha, Sarah S. Petters, Robert J. Griffin, Min Deng, Cuong Nguyen, Fangzhou Guo, V. Chandrasekar, Jean Carlos Peña, James Flynn, Sergio Alvarez, S.L. Patil, Radiance Calmer, Seth A. Thompson, Manvendra K. Dubey, Jiwen Fan, Darielle N. Dexheimer, Aifang Zhou, Xuanlin Du, Bernat P. Treserras, Chongai Kuang, Milind Sharma, Paul Savala, Joseph V. Puthserry, Philip Steir, Peter Argay, Jeremy Wakeen, Samuel Flusche, Meghan Gaugenti, Nicholas Meskidzhe
article en
3 citations

Abstract

Abstract A multi-agency succession of field campaigns was conducted in southeastern Texas during July 2021 through October 2022 to study the complex interactions of aerosols, clouds and air pollution in the coastal urban environment. As part of the Tracking Aerosol Convection interactions Experiment (TRACER), the TRACER- Air Quality (TAQ) campaign the Experiment of Sea Breeze Convection, Aerosols, Precipitation and Environment (ESCAPE) and the Convective Cloud Urban Boundary Layer Experiment (CUBE), a combination of ground-based supersites and mobile laboratories, shipborne measurements and aircraft-based instrumentation were deployed. These diverse platforms collected high-resolution data to characterize the aerosol microphysics and chemistry, cloud and precipitation micro- and macro-physical properties, environmental thermodynamics and air quality-relevant constituents that are being used in follow-on analysis and modeling activities. We present the overall deployment setups, a summary of the campaign conditions and a sampling of early research results related to: (a) aerosol precursors in the urban environment, (b) influences of local meteorology on air pollution, (c) detailed observations of the sea breeze circulation, (d) retrieved supersaturation in convective updrafts, (e) characterizing the convective updraft lifecycle, (f) variability in lightning characteristics of convective storms and (g) urban influences on surface energy fluxes. The work concludes with discussion of future research activities highlighted by the TRACER model-intercomparison project to explore the representation of aerosol-convective interactions in high-resolution simulations.

Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
University of California, Riverside (US), Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (US), Goddard Institute for Space Studies (US), Texas Tech University (US), City College of New York (US), Argonne National Laboratory (US), Goddard Space Flight Center (US), Pennsylvania State University (US), Langley Research Center (US), Los Alamos National Laboratory (US), University of Wisconsin–Madison (US), North Carolina State University (US), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US), Scripps Institution of Oceanography (US), Baylor University (US), Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (US), University of New Mexico (US), University of Colorado Boulder (US), Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (US), Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL), Brookhaven National Laboratory (US), University of California, Irvine (US), Washington University in St. Louis (US), Oklahoma City University (US), University at Albany, State University of New York (US), University of Oxford (GB), NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (US), NOAA National Weather Service (US), Sandia National Laboratories (US), Aerodyne Research (US), NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory (US), China Communications Construction Company (China) (CN), Irvine University (US), Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (US), Science Oxford (GB), National Research Council Canada (CA), Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (US), University of Houston (US), McGill University (CA), Stony Brook University (US), University of Maryland, College Park (US), Rice University (US), Columbia University (US), Roger Williams University (US), University of California, Davis (US), Virginia Tech (US), The University of Texas at Austin (US), University of Oklahoma (US), Texas A&M University (US), St. Edward's University (US), Colorado State University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Wind and Air Flow Studies
2.40
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