CoSMIR IMPACTS Airborne Brightness Temperature Measurements for Snowstorms

Brightness temperature data was collected by the Conical Scanning Millimeter-wave Imaging Radiometer (CoSMIR) onboard the NASA ER-2 aircraft during the IMPACTS field campaign. This dataset covers winter storm observations over the U.S. Atlantic coast from January 15, 2020, through February 28, 2022, targeting snowband formation and microphysics. It is provided by the GHRC DAAC in netCDF-4 format.

Use Cases

• Analyzing snowband formation and evolution using multi-frequency brightness temperature observations.
• Validating satellite-based snowfall retrieval algorithms with high-resolution airborne radiometer data.
• Studying the microphysical characteristics of snow particles across storm bands using channels like 183.31±1, ±3, and ±7 GHz.
• Investigating the relationship between millimeter-wave brightness temperatures and precipitation intensity in winter storms.

Strengths

• Data spans a multi-year campaign with a defined time range from January 2020 to February 2022.
• Provides measurements at seven specific millimeter-wave frequencies (e.g., 50.3, 52.8, 89.0, 165.5 GHz) for detailed spectral analysis.
• Collected by a well-documented conical and cross-track scanning radiometer aboard a high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, dataset size, and complete column lists are unavailable from all sources.
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' or 'None' across platforms, requiring user verification.
• The last updated date conflicts between sources, with one showing 2026-03-13 and another showing 2022-02-28.

Provenance

Source

GHRC_DAAC

Collection Method

Airborne measurements collected by the CoSMIR instrument on NASA ER-2 flights.

Time Range

January 15, 2020 to February 28, 2022

Freshness

2026-03-13 17:52:23.913181

Geography

U.S. Atlantic coast region, specifically areas impacted by winter snowstorms studied in the IMPACTS campaign.