Airborne Lidar Water Vapor and Aerosol Profiles from AFWEX Campaign

AFWEX campaign data contains vertical profiles of water vapor and aerosols measured by an airborne differential absorption lidar system. The LASE instrument, developed by NASA, collected these measurements over the Southern Great Plains site in Oklahoma from late November to mid-December 2000. The experiment successfully characterized water vapor measurement accuracy to within 5% using a core set of instruments.

Use Cases

• Validate ground-based water vapor instrument accuracy using the airborne lidar vertical profile data.
• Study atmospheric transport and air mass modification by analyzing water vapor as a tracer in the measured profiles.
• Investigate aerosol and cloud distribution relationships using the simultaneous aerosol and water vapor measurements.
• Characterize the water vapor component of the hydrologic cycle over the Southern Great Plains region from the profile data.
• Infer latent heat flux and other meteorological parameters from the high-resolution water vapor and aerosol profiles.

Strengths

• Demonstrated high accuracy, with water vapor profiles validated to within 5% by a core group of instruments.
• Provides simultaneous, collocated measurements of water vapor and aerosol vertical profiles from aircraft altitude to surface.
• Data collected during a focused 19-day field campaign (November 27 - December 15, 2000) under varied atmospheric conditions.

Limitations

• Temporal coverage is limited to a single, short campaign in late 2000, lacking long-term or seasonal data.
• Geographic scope is restricted to the ARM Southern Great Plains site in Oklahoma, limiting regional generalizability.
• Specific data volume, row count, and column details are unknown, complicating assessment of statistical power.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Airborne remote sensing via the Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) Differential Absorption Lidar system.

Time Range

November 27, 2000 to December 15, 2000.

Freshness

Data is from a 2000 campaign; no update frequency is applicable.

Geography

ARM Southern Great Plains Cloud and Radiation Testbed Site in Lamont, Oklahoma, USA.