For many years Dr. Brian Toon has been involved in using NASA aircraft to address various issues in stratospheric and tropospheric science. In the past these studies have dealt with volcanic clouds, stratospheric ozone loss, stratospheric transport processes, searching for evidence of heterogeneous chemistry in the troposphere, as well as investigating the formation and radiative properties of cirrus clouds and the sensitivity of cirrus clouds to emissions from aircraft. The Subsonic Aircraft Contrail and Cloud Effects Special Study took place during April and May of 1996.
This mission, for which Dr. Toon was the project scientist, involved the NASA DC-8, 757, ER-2 and T-39 aircraft. It cut across two project offices within NASA and interacted with Department of Energy studies using remotely piloted aircraft in the same area. The aircraft carried a large variety of instruments designed to investigate the radiative and microphysical properties of clouds, the chemistry of aircraft exhaust and heterogeneous chemistry in the upper troposphere. Dr. Toon edited a special issue of Geophys. Res. Lett .on this mission. More recently, Dr. Toon was a co-Project scientist for SOLVE (SAGE III ozone loss and validation experiment). This multi-aircraft project attempted to better understand polar ozone loss during the winter of 1999-2000. Several CU graduate students participated in this project, and their data is now being analyzed. Currently, Dr. Toon has been asked to serve in a scientific management role for CRYSTAL/FACE. This project is aimed at understanding the role of deep convection in forming high altitude cirrus, and their role in influencing the energy budget of Earth. The first field mission is planned for the summer of 2002.
