FIRE Cirrus II Raman Lidar Water Vapor Profiles

November 13 to December 7, 1991, this dataset contains vertical profiles of water vapor mixing ratio measured by a GSFC Raman Lidar during the second FIRE Cirrus intensive field observation in southeastern Kansas. Data consists of a series of one-minute and ten-minute averaged profiles with 75-meter vertical resolution from near ground level to 10.299 kilometers. The collection is part of the NASA-organized First ISCCP Regional Experiments aimed at improving cloud and radiation models.

Use Cases

• Validating and improving cloud parameterization schemes in General Circulation Models (GCMs) using high-resolution water vapor profiles.
• Studying the vertical structure and temporal evolution of water vapor during cirrus cloud life cycles.
• Analyzing the relationship between lidar-derived water vapor mixing ratio and other coordinated satellite, airborne, and surface observations from the FIRE campaign.
• Investigating atmospheric humidity indicators and their variation with altitude in the mid-troposphere.

Strengths

• Provides high vertical resolution data with 75-meter intervals from 0.4135 km to 10.299 km.
• Contains temporally dense observations with both one-minute and ten-minute averaged profiles collected nightly over a 25-day period.
• Data is part of a coordinated, multi-platform field campaign (FIRE) designed for model validation.

Limitations

• Data coverage is limited to nighttime observations during a single 25-day period in late 1991.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, listing both 1991-12-07 and 2026-03 -13, suggesting potential metadata inconsistencies.
• Specific column names and the total row count are not provided in any source description.

Provenance

Source

NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (LARC_ASDC).

Collection Method

Collected by the GSFC Raman Lidar instrument during the FIRE Cirrus Phase II intensive field observation.

Time Range

1991-11 13 to 1991-12-07

Freshness

2026-03-13 02:45:40.621936

Geography

Southeastern Kansas, United States.