TRO-PICO (Campaign)

The TRO-PICO campaign is a project dedicated to study the impact of tropical convective overshooting on stratospheric water budget from the local to wider scales.

The main activity of the project is concentrated in a series of small stratospheric balloon launches that were performed from Bauru, in the southeast of Brazil at two timescales: during the overall wet season, and at the intense convective season. The three year effort will be complemented also by the analysis in European laboratories using a wide set of modeling tools, of the data obtained from the flights.

The funding for the initiative came from the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR, National Agency for Research) from France, and counts with the participation of the Reims University also from France and the Universidade Estadual Paulista, throught their Instituto de Pesquisas Meteorológicas (IPMet) from Brazil.

The first part of the campaign was carried out in March 2012 when 13 balloons were sent aloft transporting a relatively large panel of light instrument measuring not only water vapour but also ice particles, aerosols, atmospheric tracers, chemical species linked to deep convection, and electric fields and lightning. A second part took place in November and December of the same year, with the launch field operations of the french instruments under responsability of the Brazilian group of IPMET.

List of balloons launched during TRO-PICO

Launch baseDateFlight DurationExperimentPayload landing place or cause of the failure
Baurú GLB (SP)3/4/2012---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/9/2012---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/9/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable)--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/11/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) + LOAC--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/11/2012---MINI-SAOZ (Systeme d'Analyse par Observation Zenithale)--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/13/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) + LOAC--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/13/2012---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/14/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/15/2012---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/15/2012---JETWATCH + FEMTOLIDAR--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/16/2012---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/16/2012---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)3/16/2012---MINI-SAOZ (Systeme d'Analyse par Observation Zenithale)--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)11/21/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable)--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)12/4/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable)--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)12/14/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)12/20/2012---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/18/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4 + H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/25/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/26/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) H2O + LOAC--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/27/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/28/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/29/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4 (TEST)--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/30/2013---COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)1/31/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4 + H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/1/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/1/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/4/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4 + H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/5/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/6/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) H2O + LOAC--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/7/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/9/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/10/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4 + H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/11/2013---Pico-SDLA (Spectromètre à Diode Laser Accordable) CH4 + H2O--- No Data ---
Baurú GLB (SP)2/11/2013---FLASH-B + COBALD + LOAC--- No Data ---

External Links

TRO-Pico campaign website - at University of Reims Champagne Ardenne