FIRE ASTEX: Radiosonde Atmospheric Profiles from Le Suroit Ship, June 1992

Atlantic Ocean atmospheric profiles collected from the Le Suroit ship during the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE) Atlantic Stratocumulus Transition Experiment (ASTEX). The data, gathered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from June 1 to June -20, 1992, include interpolated soundings at 5-second, 20-meter, and 2-millibar resolutions. Each file contains measurements of height, pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind during balloon ascent.

Use Cases

• Validate and improve cloud life cycle models in GCMs based on detailed marine stratocumulus system data.
• Study the interaction of physical processes in cloud systems based on high-resolution temporal and vertical profile data.
• Analyze atmospheric state variables for climate research based on measurements of pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind.
• Investigate relationships between different observational scales based on the intercomparison of ISCCP data and higher-resolution soundings.

Strengths

• Data collected during a focused scientific campaign (FIRE ASTEX) designed for model validation.
• Provides three sets of interpolated data (5-second, 20-meter, 2-millibar) offering multiple resolution views.
• Includes a defined set of key atmospheric variables: ascent rate, height, pressure, temperature, relative humidity, dew point, mixing ratio, and wind.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics and units must be inferred from the header description or after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale statistical analysis.
• Data is from a specific 20-day period in 1992, which may limit generalizability to other time periods.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Radiosonde (weather balloon) launches from the Le Suroit research ship.

Time Range

June 1, 1992 to June 20, 1992

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:48:00.901336; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Atlantic Ocean (specific latitude and longitude recorded at each launch)