Southern African Regional Science Initiative 2000

 

Research Staff: Betty Symonds

The Southern African Regional Science Initiative, SAFARI 2000, is an international regional science initiative being developed for Southern Africa. Its goal is to explore, study and address linkages between land-atmosphere processes and the relationship of biogenic, pyrogenic or anthropogenic emissions and the consequences of their deposition to the functioning of the biogeophysical and biochemical systems of southern Africa. This initiative is leveraging off of a number of on-going, funded activities by NASA, the international community and African nations in the southern African region.

More specifically, SAFARI 2000 aims to: 1) characterize, quantify and understand the processes driving biogenic, pyrogenic and anthropogenic emissions in southern Africa; 2) combine atmospheric transport and chemistry models with ground-based, airborne, and satellite-based observations to validate and extend our understanding of the transport and transformations of these emissions; 3) identify where, when and how the emissions are deposited, and determine their effects, and 4) lay the foundation for monitoring longer-term climatic, hydrological, and ecosystem consequences of these biogeochemical and physical processes. (See Figure 1.)

[SAFARI 2000 Core Expt]

Figure 1. SAFARI 2000 Core Experiment

Although SAFARI 2000 will build upon the results of SAFARI-92, it differs from that effort in at least two significant ways. First, SAFARI 2000 will be comprehensive in terms of observations, analyses and integration of land processes, land use and land cover change, terrestrial ecology, hydrology, aerosols and trace gas chemistry and transport, surface radiation, and cloud characterization and radiative effects. Second, the project is intended to deal with these complex systems by employing a regional observation network to capture as much of the variability in the physical and biological systems as possible.

The SAFARI 2000 Dry Season Campaign will be held August-September 2000. The Earth Science Project Office is providing logistic assistance to NASA Dryden for the deployment of the ER-2 aircraft to Pietersburg, South Africa. The logistics support will include facilities for the April 2000 planning meeting, the August and September transit of the ER-2 through Recife, Brazil; and investigator facilities at the ER-2 hangar in Pietersburg, South Africa.

NASA Ames investigators participating in SAFARI include P. Russell with the Ames 14-channel sunphotometer (AATS -14) on the University of Washington CV-580 aircraft and P. Pilewskie with the Ames radiometers on the NASA ER-2 and the University of Washington CV-580. He will also have ground based instrumentation in the region.

For more information see: http://safari.gecp.virginia.edu, ftp://eospso.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/lithographs/SAFARI.pdf

 

Collaborators: G. Shelton, NASA Dryden; P. Russel, P. Pilewskie and Jeannette van den Bosch, NASA ARC

Point of Contact: Betty Symonds, 650/604-3495, bsymonds@mail.arc.nasa.gov