With less than a year to prepare, scientists representing the ARM Program met in May in Ottawa, Canada, with colleagues from Environment Canada and the National Research Council of Canada to begin planning in earnest for two concurrent field campaigns taking place in Alaska next year. The Indirect and Semi-direct Aerosol Campaign (ISDAC) begins in April 2008 and lasts for 1 month. This campaign is focused on obtaining in situ cloud and aerosol measurements from above the ARM North Slope of Alaska (NSA) site in Barrow, to compare against similar measurements from the Mixed-Phase Arctic Cloud Experiment conducted in the fall of 2004. The other campaign called Routine In situ Cloud and Aerosol Measurements (RISCAM) also begins in April 2008, but lasts 4 months, through the end of July. The purpose of this campaign is to obtain a dataset of routine measurements of arctic cloud properties at the NSA to study their effects on downwelling radiation. These data will also be valuable for testing both model parameterizations as well as cloud property retrievals from the long-term measurements from the NSA.

For both campaigns, a Convair-580 aircraft, operated by the National Research Council and sponsored by the ARM Aerial Vehicles Program, will carry a payload of sophisticated instruments and probes to measure aerosol and cloud properties. For the month of April, plans are to fly the aircraft Monday through Friday to obtain the full complement of measurements to meet the science objectives of both campaigns. Once ISDAC is completed, the aircraft will fly 3 days a week to obtain the subset of measurements for RISCAM through the end of July.

The May meeting in Ottawa allowed the science team to discuss details on integrating instruments, flight plans, ground logistics plans, data protocol requirements, time lines, and action items associated with those activities. Another coordination meeting in Ottawa is planned for October, to discuss final logistics and integration details before installation of the aircraft payload begins in January 2008.

Update as of January 1, 2008: The field campaign RISCAM has been cancelled.