Microwave Science: TCSP

The Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes (TCSP) mission is an Earth science field research investigation sponsored by the Science Mission Directorate of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The field phase was conducted during the period July 1-27, 2005 out of the Juan Santamaria Airfield in San Jose, Costa Rica. The TCSP field experiment flew 12 NASA ER-2 science flights, including missions to Hurricanes Dennis and Emily, Tropical Storm Gert and an eastern Pacific mesoscale complex that may possibly have further developed into Tropical Storm Eugene. The P-3 aircraft from the NOAA Hurricane Research Division (HRD) flew 18 coordinated missions with the NASA research aircraft to investigate developing tropical disturbances. Additionally, the Aerosonde uninhabited aerial vehicle flew 8 surveillance missions and the Instituto Meteorologico Nacionale (IMN) of Costa Rica launched RS-92 balloon sondes daily to gather humidity measurements and provide validation of the water vapor measurements.

Mounted on the NASA ER-2 airplane, the High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) instrument took measurement to deliver (or potentially deliver) temperature and humidity profiles. During this campaign, HAMSR had a 1.1 second temporal resolution and a 6 deg IFOV, 3 deg. sample cell (2 km, 1km, at nadir from 20 km) for its spatial resolution.

Additional information about the TCSP campaign can be found at the official website.