Polarisation Lidar Data from Macquarie Island 2016-2018

April 2016 to March 2018 raw signal returns from the AAD POLAR lidar, capturing co-polarisation and cross-polarisation channels. The data was collected by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AU_AADC) and has a vertical resolution of 30 meters and a temporal resolution of 10 seconds. These measurements are provided without range, overlap, calibration, or background corrections.

Use Cases

• Analyze temporal evolution of co-polarisation and cross-polarisation signals to study cloud phase and particle shape.
• Process raw, uncorrected lidar signals to develop and validate range-correction and background-subtraction algorithms.
• Investigate vertical atmospheric profiles at 30m resolution for aerosol and cloud layer detection over the Southern Ocean.
• Compare signal returns from the two polarisation channels to estimate particle depolarization ratios.

Strengths

• Two-year continuous measurement period from April 2016 to March 2018.
• High-resolution data with 30m vertical and 10-second temporal sampling.
• Contains both co-polarisation and cross-polarisation channels for depolarization analysis.

Limitations

• Data is provided raw, requiring significant correction (range, overlap, calibration, background) before scientific use.
• Geographic scope is limited to a single location, Macquarie Island.
• The dataset's specific volume (rows, size) and completeness are unknown.

Provenance

Source

Australian Antarctic Data Centre (AU_AADC) via NASA Earthdata.

Collection Method

Collected by the AAD POLAR (Polarisation) lidar instrument.

Time Range

April 2016 - March 2018

Freshness

Data collection concluded in March 2018; no ongoing updates indicated.

Geography

Macquarie Island