Antarctic Syowa Station Lidar Backscatter Profiles

NASA's Micro-Pulse Lidar at Syowa Station collected atmospheric backscatter profiles on a 24-hour operational basis. The instrument operated at a 523.5 nm wavelength, reaching a maximum height of 60 km with 30-meter range and 1-minute time resolution. Data collection began with a 45-degree slant pointing direction until January 2007, switching to vertical pointing from February 2007 onward.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal trends in aerosol optical depth using the 1-minute resolution backscatter profiles.
• Study vertical cloud structure and cloud base height from the 30-meter range resolution data up to 60 km.
• Compare atmospheric column properties before and after February 2007 using the change from slant to vertical pointing direction.
• Validate satellite-derived atmospheric data over Antarctica using the ground-based lidar measurements from Syowa Station.

Strengths

• High temporal resolution with data collected every 1 minute.
• Detailed vertical profiling with a 30-meter range resolution up to 60 km altitude.
• Continuous 24-hour operation provides consistent diurnal cycle coverage.

Limitations

• Data is temporally stale, with the last known update in March 2009.
• Limited geographic scope to a single station (Syowa Station) in Antarctica.
• Unknown sample size and data completeness due to lack of row count information.

Provenance

Source

NASA MPLNET website via SCIOPS organization.

Collection Method

Collected by a NASA-upgraded SESI model Micro-Pulse Lidar instrument.

Time Range

Data spans from instrument deployment until at least March 2009, with a pointing change in February 2007.

Freshness

null

Geography

Syowa Station, Antarctica.