The Governing Council of the University of Toronto

Published purpose

This project will contribute to the Arctic POlar Night EXperiment (PONEX) campaign, which is a sub-orbital component of the Canadian Space Agency’s High-altitude Aerosols, Water vapour and Clouds (HAWC) mission. PONEX will involve a coordinated ground-based and aircraft field campaign in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, in January 2026 and will be the first such campaign to employ aircraft during polar night. This project will support two trainees, who will participate in the deployment, operation, and data analysis of two of the ground-based instruments: a scanning Doppler Lidar and a Water Vapour Lidar, both provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada. These instruments will measure vertical wind profiles, cloud base heights, planetary boundary layer heights, aerosol backscatter profiles, and water Docusign Envelope ID: F463D985-E1B1-4924-AD6E-88066E1BE7B5 vapour profiles. These measurements, in combination with other PONEX ground-based and aircraft datasets, will be used to undertake science investigations in support of the HAWC scientific objectives.