Namibia to host NASA climate project

United States space agency NASA will work with Namibian scientists on a five-year campaign meant to investigate how air pollution, man-made fires and warming oceans across Africa affects the climate.

The Namibian Press Agency (NAMPA) said Thursday that the campaign forms part of five projects under NASA's Earth Venture initiative.

The other four investigations are atmospheric chemistry and air pollution, ecosystem changes in a warming ocean, greenhouse gas sources, and melting Greenland glaciers.

Each project will cost 30 million U.S. dollars over five years.

Part of the project will be an airborne and ground-based observations of radiation, aerosol and cloud microphysics above and below aerosol and clouds over the south-east Atlantic Ocean.

There will also be three Intensive Observation Periods over a five-year period to observe aerosols above clouds and their interactions to study key processes that determine the climate impacts of African biomass burning aerosols.

Three campaigns with P-3 aircraft are expected to commence in September 2016, August 2017 and October 2018.

According to NAMPA, Jens Redemann of NASA, who is the project leader said an aircraft, including a Wallop P-3 aircraft and an Armstrong ER-2 aircraft would conduct the investigation from the Walvis Bay operations' base in Namibia.

"We are currently planning an initial site visit to Namibian airports, universities and research stations between February 23 and March 5, 2015. We are trying to gauge the interest of local scientists and research outfits to see if our project can mutually benefit all interests," NAMPA quoted Redemann Wednesday.

In addition, Redemann told NAMPA that two new Aerosol Robotic Network (Aeronet) ground-sites will be established in St. Helena -- a tropical island of volcanic origin in the South Atlantic Ocean and Angola, respectively.

Redemann said the southeast Atlantic is a prime location for studying aerosol-cloud interactions because it hosts some of the largest aerosol optical depths partly due to the persistence of aerosols above clouds.

"The varying separation of cloud and aerosol layers to be sampled during Oracles (Observation of Aerosols above clouds and their interactions) allow for a process-oriented understanding of how variations in radioactive heating profiles impact cloud properties, which is expected to improve simulations for other remote regions experiencing long-range aerosol transport above clouds," Redemann said.

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