February 7, 2002
UW research plane grounded
For sale: Convair 580, flown by University of Washington researchers for global atmospheric analysis, used to study smoke from burning oil wells in Kuwait, double-check satellite measurements of clouds over the tropical Pacific and measure properties of rain in the Pacific Northwest.
OK, so that’s not the real ad taken out by Peter Hobbs, but it could be. The UW atmospheric sciences professor has decided to ground his research facility after three aircraft and more than 30 years of airborne studies.
During that time, the Cloud and Aerosol Research Group (CARG) led by Hobbs did some of the first studies of the effects of industrial pollution on the atmosphere and some of the earliest research on acid rain. The team flew through the acrid smoke from burning oil wells in Kuwait after the Gulf War, burning jungle vegetation in the Amazon River basin and Africa, and through ash spewing from volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens in Washington and Redoubt in Alaska.
“We’ve built up one of the best facilities in the world for this type of study,” Hobbs said. “It’s a big facility for a university group to run. It takes several million dollars a year, and that has gotten increasingly hard to find.”
Ideally, the Convair 580, dubbed Husky One, and all of its research equipment would be sold intact. However, only a few groups in the world do this kind of research and so the aircraft and equipment might have to be separated, he said.
Started by Hobbs in 1963, CARG developed into one of the world’s largest groups studying clouds, precipitation and atmospheric pollution, all of which are important in understanding climate change.
After a $2 million retrofit in the late 1990s, Husky One became one of the world’s best-equipped planes for measuring trace gases, aerosols, clouds and precipitation. The 40-year-old aircraft, kept in a hangar at Paine Field in Everett, was acquired as surplus property from the federal government.
The Convair 580 replaced a Convair C-131A, which the group used from 1984 through 1997 for extensive research on the structure of clouds, the effects of clouds on solar radiation, pollution in the Arctic and the properties of smoke and its effects on climate and atmospheric chemistry. With that aircraft, the group monitored the smoke pouring from oil wells in Kuwait set ablaze by Iraqi forces during the Gulf War of 1991, and later analyzed smoke from burning jungle forests in the Amazon region.
The group’s first plane, used from 1970 to 1984, was a World War II-vintage Douglas B-23 previously owned by Howard Hughes. Its first mission was to gather measurements in Pacific Northwest storms, studies that provided the first details on the organization of precipitation in cyclones that occur outside the tropics. The B-23 is now displayed in the McChord Air Museum at McChord Air Force Base near Tacoma.
Through the years, the research group has published more than 300 scientific papers. A flight of just a few hours can yield enough data for a student’s degree thesis, Hobbs said. He noted that since 1970, the group’s airborne measurements have been the basis for 55 master’s and doctoral degree dissertations.
“Although we have been very productive, we have always collected far more data than we’ve been able to analyze,” he said. “There is enough unanalyzed data to keep CARG scientists and students busy for many years.”
Among its recent missions, Husky One flew over the Arctic, the tropical Pacific and southern Africa. But its last assignment, in November and December, was to fly over the Cascades in Oregon, obtaining measurements aimed at improving the models used for weather forecasts.
“We sort of came full circle by returning to what we started out doing in the 1970s, but with much better equipment,” Hobbs said.
