In collaboration with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), PMEL’s Atmospheric Chemistry Group is in the first of three years of the Boundary layer Exploration of Aerosols and Clouds ON Ships (BEACONS) project. BEACONS will deploy state-of-the-art technology aboard commercial ships to monitor clouds, aerosols, and other atmospheric phenomena. BEACONS aims to demonstrate the feasibility of collecting high-resolution atmospheric data from commercial vessels, offering unprecedented data sets to improve process-level understanding of aerosol-cloud interactions, enhance model accuracy, and advance satellite retrieval processes. PMEL is currently designing a Modular Sampling Platform (MSP) for the autonomous measurement of aerosol properties. Testing of the MSP on-site at PMEL and then PNNL will begin in the fall of 2025. A year at sea of unattended measurements is planned to start in Spring of 2026 onboard Pasha Hawaii’s Marjorie C combination container/roll-on/roll-off vessel with repeat transits between California and Hawaii.

Additional information and collected data can be found on the BEACONS website: https://beacons.labworks.org/