Articles | Volume 17, issue 19
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5709-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-17-5709-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
30 Sep 2024
Research article |
| 30 Sep 2024
| 30 Sep 2024
Pre-launch calibration and validation of the Airborne Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (AirHARP) instrument
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, MD, USA
J. Vanderlei Martins
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
J. Dominik Cieslak
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Roberto Fernandez-Borda
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Anin Puthukkudy
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Xiaoguang Xu
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Noah Sienkiewicz
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Earth and Space Institute, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
Brian Cairns
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA
Henrique M. J. Barbosa
Department of Physics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD, USA
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Meng Gao, Bryan A. Franz, Peng-Wang Zhai, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Andrew M. Sayer, Xiaoguang Xu, J. Vanderlei Martins, Brian Cairns, Patricia Castellanos, Guangliang Fu, Neranga Hannadige, Otto Hasekamp, Yongxiang Hu, Amir Ibrahim, Frederick Patt, Anin Puthukkudy, and P. Jeremy Werdell
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Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 5749–5770, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-5749-2023, 2023
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Juan Vicente Pallotta, Silvânia Alves de Carvalho, Fabio Juliano da Silva Lopes, Alexandre Cacheffo, Eduardo Landulfo, and Henrique Melo Jorge Barbosa
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Lidar networks coordinate efforts of different groups, providing guidelines to homogenize retrievals from different instruments. We describe an ongoing effort to develop the Lidar Processing Pipeline (LPP) collaboratively, a collection of tools developed in C/C++ to handle all the steps of a typical lidar analysis. Analysis of simulations and real lidar data showcases the LPP’s features. From this exercise, we draw a roadmap to guide future development, accommodating the needs of our community.
Armin Sorooshian, Mikhail D. Alexandrov, Adam D. Bell, Ryan Bennett, Grace Betito, Sharon P. Burton, Megan E. Buzanowicz, Brian Cairns, Eduard V. Chemyakin, Gao Chen, Yonghoon Choi, Brian L. Collister, Anthony L. Cook, Andrea F. Corral, Ewan C. Crosbie, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Joshua P. DiGangi, Glenn S. Diskin, Sanja Dmitrovic, Eva-Lou Edwards, Marta A. Fenn, Richard A. Ferrare, David van Gilst, Johnathan W. Hair, David B. Harper, Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario, Chris A. Hostetler, Nathan Jester, Michael Jones, Simon Kirschler, Mary M. Kleb, John M. Kusterer, Sean Leavor, Joseph W. Lee, Hongyu Liu, Kayla McCauley, Richard H. Moore, Joseph Nied, Anthony Notari, John B. Nowak, David Painemal, Kasey E. Phillips, Claire E. Robinson, Amy Jo Scarino, Joseph S. Schlosser, Shane T. Seaman, Chellappan Seethala, Taylor J. Shingler, Michael A. Shook, Kenneth A. Sinclair, William L. Smith Jr., Douglas A. Spangenberg, Snorre A. Stamnes, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Christiane Voigt, Holger Vömel, Andrzej P. Wasilewski, Hailong Wang, Edward L. Winstead, Kira Zeider, Xubin Zeng, Bo Zhang, Luke D. Ziemba, and Paquita Zuidema
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The NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) produced a unique dataset for research into aerosol–cloud–meteorology interactions. HU-25 Falcon and King Air aircraft conducted systematic and spatially coordinated flights over the northwest Atlantic Ocean. This paper describes the ACTIVATE flight strategy, instrument and complementary dataset products, data access and usage details, and data application notes.
Meng Gao, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Bryan A. Franz, Peng-Wang Zhai, Brian Cairns, Xiaoguang Xu, and J. Vanderlei Martins
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2067–2087, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2067-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2067-2023, 2023
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Multi-angle polarimetric measurements have been shown to greatly improve the remote sensing capability of aerosols and help atmospheric correction for ocean color retrievals. However, the uncertainty correlations among different measurement angles have not been well characterized. In this work, we provided a practical framework to evaluate the impact of the angular uncertainty correlation in retrieval results and a method to directly estimate correlation strength from retrieval residuals.
Emily D. Lenhardt, Lan Gao, Jens Redemann, Feng Xu, Sharon P. Burton, Brian Cairns, Ian Chang, Richard A. Ferrare, Chris A. Hostetler, Pablo E. Saide, Calvin Howes, Yohei Shinozuka, Snorre Stamnes, Mary Kacarab, Amie Dobracki, Jenny Wong, Steffen Freitag, and Athanasios Nenes
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 2037–2054, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2037-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-2037-2023, 2023
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Small atmospheric particles, such as smoke from wildfires or pollutants from human activities, impact cloud properties, and clouds have a strong influence on climate. To better understand the distributions of these particles, we develop relationships to derive their concentrations from remote sensing measurements from an instrument called a lidar. Our method is reliable for smoke particles, and similar steps can be taken to develop relationships for other particle types.
Elion Daniel Hack, Theotonio Pauliquevis, Henrique Melo Jorge Barbosa, Marcia Akemi Yamasoe, Dimitri Klebe, and Alexandre Lima Correia
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 1263–1278, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1263-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-1263-2023, 2023
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Water vapor is a key factor when seeking to understand fast-changing processes when clouds and storms form and develop. We show here how images from a calibrated infrared camera can be used to derive how much water vapor there is in the atmosphere at a given time. Comparing our results to an established technique, for a case of stable atmospheric conditions, we found an agreement within 2.8 %. Water vapor sky maps can be retrieved every few minutes, day or night, under partly cloudy skies.
Andrew M. Sayer, Luca Lelli, Brian Cairns, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Amir Ibrahim, Kirk D. Knobelspiesse, Sergey Korkin, and P. Jeremy Werdell
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 16, 969–996, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-969-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-969-2023, 2023
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This paper presents a method to estimate the height of the top of clouds above Earth's surface using satellite measurements. It is based on light absorption by oxygen in Earth's atmosphere, which darkens the signal that a satellite will see at certain wavelengths of light. Clouds "shield" the satellite from some of this darkening, dependent on cloud height (and other factors), because clouds scatter light at these wavelengths. The method will be applied to the future NASA PACE mission.
Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Otto P. Hasekamp, Brian Cairns, Gregory L. Schuster, Snorre Stamnes, Michael Shook, and Luke Ziemba
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 7411–7434, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-7411-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-7411-2022, 2022
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The strong variability in the chemistry of atmospheric particulate matter affects the amount of water aerosols absorb and their effect on climate. We present a remote sensing method to determine the amount of water in particulate matter. Its application to airborne instruments indicates that the observed aerosols have rather low water contents and low fractions of soluble particles. Future satellites will be able to yield global aerosol water uptake data.
Meng Gao, Kirk Knobelspiesse, Bryan A. Franz, Peng-Wang Zhai, Andrew M. Sayer, Amir Ibrahim, Brian Cairns, Otto Hasekamp, Yongxiang Hu, Vanderlei Martins, P. Jeremy Werdell, and Xiaoguang Xu
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 4859–4879, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4859-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-4859-2022, 2022
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In this work, we assessed the pixel-wise retrieval uncertainties on aerosol and ocean color derived from multi-angle polarimetric measurements. Standard error propagation methods are used to compute the uncertainties. A flexible framework is proposed to evaluate how representative these uncertainties are compared with real retrieval errors. Meanwhile, to assist operational data processing, we optimized the computational speed to evaluate the retrieval uncertainties based on neural networks.
Dongwei Fu, Larry Di Girolamo, Robert M. Rauber, Greg M. McFarquhar, Stephen W. Nesbitt, Jesse Loveridge, Yulan Hong, Bastiaan van Diedenhoven, Brian Cairns, Mikhail D. Alexandrov, Paul Lawson, Sarah Woods, Simone Tanelli, Sebastian Schmidt, Chris Hostetler, and Amy Jo Scarino
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 8259–8285, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8259-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8259-2022, 2022
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Satellite-retrieved cloud microphysics are widely used in climate research because of their central role in water and energy cycles. Here, we provide the first detailed investigation of retrieved cloud drop sizes from in situ and various satellite and airborne remote sensing techniques applied to real cumulus cloud fields. We conclude that the most widely used passive remote sensing method employed in climate research produces high biases of 6–8 µm (60 %–80 %) caused by 3-D radiative effects.
Marco A. Franco, Florian Ditas, Leslie A. Kremper, Luiz A. T. Machado, Meinrat O. Andreae, Alessandro Araújo, Henrique M. J. Barbosa, Joel F. de Brito, Samara Carbone, Bruna A. Holanda, Fernando G. Morais, Janaína P. Nascimento, Mira L. Pöhlker, Luciana V. Rizzo, Marta Sá, Jorge Saturno, David Walter, Stefan Wolff, Ulrich Pöschl, Paulo Artaxo, and Christopher Pöhlker
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 3469–3492, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3469-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-3469-2022, 2022
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In Central Amazonia, new particle formation in the planetary boundary layer is rare. Instead, there is the appearance of sub-50 nm aerosols with diameters larger than about 20 nm that eventually grow to cloud condensation nuclei size range. Here, 254 growth events were characterized which have higher predominance in the wet season. About 70 % of them showed direct relation to convective downdrafts, while 30 % occurred partly under clear-sky conditions, evidencing still unknown particle sources.
David Painemal, Douglas Spangenberg, William L. Smith Jr., Patrick Minnis, Brian Cairns, Richard H. Moore, Ewan Crosbie, Claire Robinson, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Edward L. Winstead, and Luke Ziemba
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 6633–6646, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6633-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-6633-2021, 2021
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Cloud properties derived from satellite sensors are critical for the global monitoring of climate. This study evaluates satellite-based cloud properties over the North Atlantic using airborne data collected during NAAMES. Satellite observations of droplet size and cloud optical depth tend to compare well with NAAMES data. The analysis indicates that the satellite pixel resolution and the specific viewing geometry need to be taken into account in research applications.
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Short summary
The Airborne Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (AirHARP) is a new Earth-observing instrument that provides highly accurate measurements of the atmosphere and surface. Using a physics-based calibration technique, we show that AirHARP achieves high measurement accuracy in laboratory and field environments and exceeds a benchmark accuracy requirement for modern aerosol and cloud climate observations. Therefore, the HARP design is highly attractive for upcoming NASA climate missions.
The Airborne Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (AirHARP) is a new Earth-observing instrument...
