Replication Data for: Differences in cloud optical and microphysical properties in the Arctic and Antarctic derived using thermal infrared spectroscopy

This dataset provides information about cloud properties derived from measurements of downwelling atmospheric emission by Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI) instruments at two polar field sites. Two were deployed at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) in Eureka, Nunavut, Canada (80N, 86W), and the third was at McMurdo Station, Antarctica (77S, 166E) as part of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) West Antarctica Radiation Experiment (AWARE) project.

The dataset contains the following variables related to retrievals of cloud optical and microphysical properties: optical depth (tau), ice fraction (ifrac), liquid effective radius (rliq), ice effective radius (rice), mean temperature at cloud layers (temp), precipitable water vapour (pwv), cloud base (cldbase), cloud top (cldtop), at each given timestamp (time) for the Eureka E-AERI and P-AERI and for the McMurdo AERI.

Three datasets are presented:
(1) at Eureka, where cloud boundary information has been retrieved from E-AERI and P-AERI spectra using CO2 slicing (2006-2022),
(2) at Eureka, where cloud boundary information has been prescribed from lidar measurements (2006-2008 and 2016-2018), and
(3) at McMurdo during the ARM AWARE campaign, where cloud boundary information has also been prescribed from lidar measurements (2016).

These data are used in "Differences in cloud optical and microphysical properties in the Arctic and Antarctic derived using thermal infrared spectroscopy" by Hung et al. (to be submitted, 2026). Contacts: Joseph Hung ([e-mail]) and Kimberly Strong ([e-mail]).