Arctic Summer Radiation and Cloud Lidar Data from NASA Aircraft Campaign

MARLi lidar data was collected onboard a NASA P-3B aircraft during the 2024 ARCSIX campaign to quantify factors influencing the Arctic summer surface radiation budget and sea ice melt. The campaign involved multiple aircraft and a ground observatory in Greenland across two deployments from May to August 2024. This dataset is part of a NASA field investigation led by LARC_CLOUD to validate remote sensing algorithms and improve model predictions for the Arctic region.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite-derived cloud top height and aerosol optical depth measurements using airborne lidar profiles.
• Analyzing the impact of specific cloud types on the surface radiative energy budget during the Arctic melt season.
• Studying vertical profiles of atmospheric water vapor mixing ratio and depolarization ratio to understand aerosol-cloud interactions.
• Improving parameterizations in climate models for Arctic summer conditions using coordinated in-situ and remote sensing observations.

Strengths

• Data originates from a coordinated NASA multi-aircraft and ground observatory campaign (ARCSIX) designed for algorithm validation.
• Covers the critical early melt season in the Arctic across two deployments from May to August 2024.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and curated status.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source, limiting detailed assessment.
• A license conflict exists: one source specifies 'other-license-specified' while another lists the license as 'None'.
• The completeness of the MARLi data product is stated, but the exact temporal coverage within the campaign period is unspecified.

Provenance

Source

NASA Langley Research Center Cloud group (LARC_CLOUD) via the ARCSIX field campaign.

Collection Method

Airborne remote sensing measurements collected by the Multi-function Airborne Raman Lidar (MARLi) instrument onboard the NASA P-3B aircraft.

Time Range

May 2024 to August 2024

Freshness

2026-03-13 16:48:10.930708

Geography

Arctic region, with operations based out of Greenland and data collected at the Thule High Arctic Atmospheric Observatory (THAAO) in Pituffik.