COSMICS is a Met Office project using the FAAM BAe-146 aircraft operated out of Prestwick airport.

It had 2 Science Objectives:
1) ISMAR
-To evaluate the performance of the ISMAR instrument.
-To measure the submillimetre spectral signature of cirrus and clear skies. Other aircraft instruments are required to provide “truth” and provide closure measurements.
-To obtain microwave, submillimetre, infrared and visible aircraft data simultaneously with satellite overpasses (e.g. A-train, METOP).
-To overfly ground based sites in cirrus conditions and obtain submillimetre and in-situ cirrus measurements.

2)Cold Air Outbreak
-To investigate processes controlling the transition between stratiform and cellular cloud structure in cold-air outbreak flows, including:
-Surface fluxes of heat and moisture
-Boundary-layer structure and flux profiles
-Microphysical and precipitation processes, in particular ice formation and growth