North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME)

The North American Monsoon Experiment (NAME) is dedicated to learning more about the impact of surface boundary conditions in the initiation and maintenance of the North American Monsoon System (NAMS), which impacts vital summer precipitation over large potions of the interior North American continent.

NAME researchers believe land surface conditions, especially soil moisture, play an extensive role in the onset and intensity of NAMS by impacting evaportranspiration between storm events. Evapotranspiration is the total amount of water that is transferred from the surface to the atmosphere. It includes evaporation of water and transpiration from plants. Surface wetness can contribute greatly to this process and thus may enhance future storm systems and precipitation.

During summer 2004, NAME will carry out several specific activities, including the study of soil moisture products from the existing in-situ network in Arizona and the development of an equivalent network within a study region in Mexico. NAME will also employ an intensive ground and aircraft field campaign to provide validation of land and satellite data, including NASA�s Aqua satellite, Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite and the Advanced Microwave Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) instrument on Aqua.

Contacts:

Tom Jackson
USDA
tjackson@hydrolab.arsusda.gov

Eni Njoku
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
njoku@mailhost4.jpl.nasa.gov

Science Goals:

• To better understand how the evolution of the warm season (May-October) atmospheric circulation and precipitation regimes over North America relate to the seasonal evolution of oceanic and continental boundary conditions.
• Determine the significant features of and relationships between the anomaly-sustaining atmospheric circulation and the boundary conditions that characterize large-scale, long-lasting continental precipitation anomalies.
• Promote better understanding of warm season convective processes over complex terrain.
• Gather data on the inter-seasonal variability of the monsoon.
• Understand the feedback mechanisms of surface soil moisture on weather and climate by developing methods to assimilate surface soil moisture observations in models. Also, establishing long-term in situ soil moisture validation sites for satellite based retrievals.
• Validatie soil moisture products from the Aqua and ADEOS-II AMSR (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer) instruments.
• Evaluate new sensor technologies and algorithms for future soil moisture missions including HYDROS.

Partners:

NASA researchers will work in close collaboration with scientists from numerous government agencies and universities, including the USDA, ARS, Sonora Research Institute, University of Arizona, Princeton University and Harvard University.

When:

July-August 2004 Tombstone, AZ and Hemosillo, MX

Where:

The Walnut Gulch Region of Arizone near Tombstone and the Sonora Region of Mexico near Hemosillo.

Links:

Mission Site:

http://www.joss.ucar.edu/name/

For information about Aqua:

http://www.aqua.nasa.gov/

For information about NASA's AMSR-E:

http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/AMSR/

For information about NASA's Land Surface Hydrology Program:

http://lshp.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For information about the Southwest Watershed Research Center:

http://www.tucson.ars.ag.gov/

For information about the Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory:

http://hydrolab.arsusda.gov/