NASA Airborne Lidar Cloud and Aerosol Profiles from OLYMPEX Campaign

Olympic Mountains Experiment (OLYMPEX) campaign data contains vertical profiles of cloud and aerosol properties measured by a multi-wavelength lidar aboard the NASA ER-2 aircraft. The dataset includes extinction profiles, layer optical depth, lidar ratio, and aircraft parameters from November 9 to December 15, 2015. It is produced by NASA as part of the Global Precipitation Mission (GPM) ground validation effort.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite-derived cloud optical depth and extinction estimates from GPM using in-situ lidar profiles.
• Analyzing the vertical structure of cirrus clouds and aerosols over the Pacific Northwest during winter storms.
• Studying the relationship between aircraft flight parameters and concurrent atmospheric lidar measurements.
• Investigating multi-wavelength backscatter signals to differentiate between particle types in atmospheric layers.

Strengths

• Data originates from a NASA airborne campaign using the specialized Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) instrument.
• Provides high temporal and spatial resolution multi-wavelength measurements for a focused 37-day period.
• Includes derived geophysical products like layer optical depth and lidar ratio alongside raw profiles.

Limitations

• Key technical details such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Data is confined to a single campaign period and geographic region (Olympic Mountains).
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Airborne remote sensing via the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) instrument on the NASA ER-2 aircraft.

Time Range

November 9, 2015 through December15, 2015

Freshness

Metadata was last updated on one platform in March 2026, though the data collection ended in December 2015.

Geography

Olympic Mountains region, Pacific Northwest, United States (inferred from campaign name).