Radiosondes CPEX-CV: Atmospheric Profiles from the 2022 Cabo Verde Campaign

NASA's Convective Processes Experiment – Cabo Verde collected these radiosonde measurements from September 1 to 29, 2022. The dataset includes profiles of wind direction, dew point temperature, geopotential height, mixing ratio, atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, wind speed, and multiple temperature metrics across the troposphere. These data were gathered from the NASA DC-8 aircraft based in Sal Island to study atmospheric dynamics and the Saharan Air Layer in the tropical East Atlantic.

Use Cases

• Modeling tropospheric wind profiles based on wind speed and direction measurements.
• Analyzing atmospheric stability and convection based on potential temperature and equivalent potential temperature profiles.
• Studying moisture transport and the Saharan Air Layer based on water vapor, relative humidity, and mixing ratio data.
• Investigating marine boundary layer properties based on temperature and pressure measurements at various altitudes.

Strengths

• Data originates from a NASA field campaign using a DC-8 aircraft equipped with remote sensors and dropsonde-launch capability.
• Includes multiple thermodynamic variables (e.g., temperature, potential temperature, equivalent potential temperature) for atmospheric analysis.
• Covers a specific, data-sparse region (tropical East Atlantic) during a defined campaign period in August-September 2022.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data files are in netCDF-4 format, which may require specific tools for analysis.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected via radiosondes launched from a NASA DC-8 aircraft during the CPEX-CV field campaign.

Time Range

September 1, 2022 through September 29, 2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 22:26:50.945180; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Sal Island, Cabo Verde and the surrounding tropical East Atlantic region.