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Scientific Motivation Long duration observing platforms operating in the lower stratosphere at altitudes around 65 kft (20 km), would provide critically needed scientific breakthroughs in both the Space Sciences and the Earth Sciences. The StratoCruiser...

While past climates have had high water vapor concentrations in the stratosphere, the Earth system has never simultaneously had high water vapor concentrations and high halogen loading as may well be the case now under high levels of climate forcing by...

The quantitative determination of methane and carbon dioxide isotopic fluxes from the most important source and sink regions constitutes a first order imperative in the union of energy, climate, and public policy for this country. To address this...

The massive loss of Arctic floating ice was not forecast, nor is it quantitatively understood. What is clear is that the feedbacks intrinsic to the system will eliminate the second half of the permanent ice more quickly than the first half was lost –...

One of the great challenges in the international debate over limitations on carbon release from fossil fuel combustion is the question of accurately determining the net flux of carbon based greenhouse gas emission. To answer this question in a manner that...

The extraction of natural gas from shale deposits by means of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has moved to the forefront of the strategic energy debate because of its importance to the economy and its potential impact on the environment. The key...

Benchmarking Radiance for Climate Change: With the rapid increase in climate forcing through the addition of infrared active molecules to the atmosphere by fossil fuel combustion and the probability of carbon release from expanding melt zones in the...

Photochemistry and Kinetics: A Critical Component of Global Change Research On the global scale, with little doubt, the most successful intersection of fundamental science and public policy is the case linking ground-level CFC release with the catalytic...

Technical Summary of the Flight System StratoCruiser Propulsion Module offers unprecedented mobility and measurement capability combining the persistence of balloon platforms for greatly extended observing times, station keeping over the central U.S. in...

To understand the chemistry of our atmosphere, we need to be able to measure which chemical species are present in what concentrations and how those concentrations vary in space and time. For some purposes, very broad measurments can be made from...

The electronics group provides electrical engineering support to flight and lab experiments. This includes determining system requirements, specifying system architectures, designing of custom electronics as necessary, building and testing complete...

We use light as part of the detection system in almost every instrument we build. Light of appropriate frequencies can be used to excite molecules, causing them to fluoresce, or the light may be absorbed, with the depth of the absorption indicating the...