FIRE Cirrus 1: Sabreliner Aircraft Radiometric and Meteorological Data from 1986

1986 data from the First ISCCP Regional Experiment (FIRE) Cirrus field campaign, collected by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Sabreliner aircraft. The dataset contains meteorological and radiometric measurements, including aircraft position, static pressure, temperature, humidity, and radiation irradiances across shortwave, near-infrared, and infrared spectra. It was published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Use Cases

• Modeling cirrus cloud radiative effects based on measured shortwave and infrared irradiances.
• Analyzing in-situ atmospheric conditions like temperature and humidity profiles from aircraft sensors.
• Studying aircraft-based cloud microphysics using data from the icing rate detector.
• Calibrating satellite cloud retrievals with high-resolution aircraft position and attitude data.

Strengths

• Data collected during a dedicated, well-documented field campaign (FIRE Cirrus IFO).
• Includes measurements from multiple specialized instruments (e.g., Lyman-alpha hygrometer, pyranometers, pyrgeometers).
• Aircraft-based data provides high-resolution in-situ atmospheric profiles.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is from a single campaign in 1986; temporal and geographic scope is limited.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Instrumented aircraft measurements collected by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Sabreliner.

Time Range

1986

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 02:53:21.805206; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Colorado, United States (inferred from campaign name).