CAMEX-2 Airborne Doppler Radar Measurements of Tropical Convection

Reprocessed X-band Doppler radar data captures the dynamics of tropical deep convection and cyclones from the nose of a NASA ER-2 aircraft. The dataset was collected during the Convection And Moisture EXperiment (CAMEX-2) field campaign from July 17 to August 28, 1995, by the Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GHRC DAAC). It provides high-resolution vertical profiles with a nadir footprint of 1 km at the surface from an altitude of 20 km.

Use Cases

• Analyze vertical wind velocity and reflectivity profiles from the nadir and forward-pointing antennas to study convective updraft and downdraft structures.
• Correlate radar reflectivity measurements with other CAMEX-2 instrument data to investigate thermodynamic properties of tropical storm systems.
• Use the georeferenced, time-stamped flight path data to map the spatial distribution of precipitation and cloud microphysics within storm cells.
• Validate and calibrate ground-based or spaceborne radar observations using the high-altitude, airborne EDOP measurements as a reference.

Strengths

• Data covers a 43-day intensive field campaign focused on tropical convection in 1995.
• Provides high-resolution measurements with a 37.5-meter range gate spacing and a 1 km surface footprint from 20 km altitude.
• Includes dual-beam measurements from fixed antennas at nadir and 33.2 degrees forward for enhanced 3D wind retrieval.

Limitations

• Dataset is temporally limited to a single field campaign in 1995, offering a snapshot rather than long-term climatology.
• Spatial coverage is restricted to the specific flight paths of the ER-2 aircraft during CAMEX-2.
• Original data collection ended in 1995; the reprocessed version may still reflect the sensor technology and processing methods of that era.

Provenance

Source

Global Hydrology Resource Center Distributed Active Archive Center (GHRC DAAC).

Collection Method

Collected by the ER-2 Doppler Radar (EDOP), an X-band (9.6 GHz) instrument mounted on the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft.

Time Range

July 17, 1995 to August 28, 1995.

Freshness

Data was last updated on 1995-08-28; it is a historical, reprocessed archive with no ongoing updates.

Geography

Flight paths during the CAMEX-2 field campaign, which targeted tropical convection regions, likely over the western Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.