The ADRIEX field campaign took place between 24 August and 6 September 2004. The aircraft was based at Treviso in northern Italy, just inland from Venice. Nine flights were flown in conjunction with ground based sunphotometers, lidars and satellite overpasses. Several flights were flown up and down the Po valley. Photographs taken from the aircraft during a flight on a clear day and during a flight on a polluted day are shown below. In the second photograph one can see that some stubble burning is taking place. It is clear that the amount of pollution is determining the visibility. On the clear day the visibility is over 100 km, while on the polluted day the visibility is around 5 km.

UK Met Office

An SSEC science team accompanied the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS) to Italy to work on the Aerosol Direct Radiative Impact EXperiment (ADRIEX). This experiment sought to analyze aerosol pollution caused by human activity. A Web site for Benevento, Italy prominently displays news of ADRIEX with a picture of Bill Smith, long-time SSEC collaborator, and the Proteus aircraft, which flew several instruments including the Scanning HIS. The Italian text refers to the collaboration of NASA, Wisconsin (SSEC) and Italy’s Mediterranean Agency for Remote Sensing. After gathering data for ADRIEX, the Scanning HIS went to England and flew in tandem with NASA’s NAST-I to validate the AIRS satellite as well as to calibrate and fine-tune both instruments.

SSEC in the News, September 2004. Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), University of Wisconsin-Madison