This is a feature story published by the DOE Office of Science and shared with permission.
Ice crashed down on the windshield of the small plane. Rain pounded the wings. Water sloshed inside important instruments.
For most pilots, this would be a nightmare.
But still, the plane climbed up through the clouds. It ascended more than 5,000 feet above the ocean.
For this team, these conditions were ideal. In fact, they had been waiting for this moment.
This aircraft, along with three other planes and a research boat, were collecting data on atmospheric rivers—large, narrow sections of the atmosphere that run from the tropics to higher latitudes. Each carries about the same amount of water vapor as liquid water flowing through the mouth of the Amazon River. Upon reaching land—especially coastal areas next to mountains—they jettison much of this moisture. That causes massive amounts of rain and snow to fall.
The vehicles and equipment inside of them were operated by U.S. government agencies to better understand how atmospheric rivers act. The small plane spiraling up through the clouds was run by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility, managed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science. The other aircraft were supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. There was also a research vessel from NOAA and instruments from the National Science Foundation and ARM.
Probing observations, satellite data, and climate models, scientists supported by DOE’s Office of Science are exploring atmospheric rivers’ role in the water and climate cycles. But navigating through the data proved to be trickier than the scientists expected.