This award supports the participation of a new faculty member at Kent State University together with an experienced team at the University of Denver in the HIAPER Progressive Science (HPS) program. HPS is intended to demonstrate the abilities of the HIAPER (HIgh Altitude Platform for Environmental Research) aircraft to perform science missions by flying limited payloads that promise at least modest scientific return. This project provides funds to make measurements of aerosol size distributions over the range of 4-2000nm with HIAPER, using the U. Denver Nuclei Mode Aerosol Size Spectrometer (NMASS) and the Focused Cavity Aerosol Spectrometer (FCAS). The objectives of this work are to study new particle formation in the free troposphere. The measurements will provide data on the latitude and altitude dependence of new particle formation and examine key factors that govern particle formation processes, such as sun exposure and surface area of pre-existing aerosol.
