Marine Atmospheric Capability

Brief description The current atmospheric laboratories aboard the RV Investigator are world class facilities. Current management of these facilities is a successful and effective collaboration between technical staff on the ground within the Marine National Facility, and specialists for particular instruments at the Aspendale CSIRO site. As with any facility of this standard, we are continuously learning how to improve the operation and quality of the facility and its data products. We are at a point now where there has been substantial experience running, and working in, these laboratories throughout numerous intensive measurement voyages and under normal operation. As the last of the main set of permanent instruments are being installed, it is timely to coalesce the learning from the previous two years of operation and setup a facility that provides a robust, flexible and turn-key solution for atmospheric scientists for years to come. Additionally, as data streams from these instruments, it is vital that a mechanism be established for maintaining the world-class quality of the data. This must be done by systematic, regular maintenance of each instrument, as well as performing quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) of the data before it is made publically available via a World Data Centre. The establishment of these world class laboratories is a significant advance for atmospheric sciences globally, and provides a unique insight into the Southern Hemisphere atmosphere that has previously been missing from global datasets. Our principle aim in this proposal is to ensure this facility is producing data of the highest quality. Maintaining this high quality data will assure that our data can be utilised with confidence by users throughout the world for purposes such as in improving and validating our climate models, and understanding our complex environment.