Processed GPM-DPR Convective Profiles (April 2014 - November 2023)

This is the processed dataset that corresponds with the paper titled: "A multi-frequency spaceborne radar perspective of deep convection" in AMS JAMC. The paper looks to evaluate the information content of shorter wavelengths of radar observed within deep convection collected by NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM) Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR). This dataset is the colocated and quality controlled radar profiles measured at Ku- (13 GHz) and Ka- (35 GHz) band within convection labeled by the GPM-DPR algorithms. These profiles occur globally from about -65 S and 65 N. The dataset is broken into yearly files, where each one contains radar profiles of shape n_samples, range_from_radar. Inside the files are also the original data (not-QCed), the temperature profile and a bunch of derived metrics from the profiles (e.g., echotops that were used in the paper). Overall, there are more than 39 million profiles in the dataset observed from March 2014 to November 2023. The script used to make these files is also included. 

Methods
These files are a combination of the 2A.DPR files and the 2B.CMB files from GPM-DPR (see this webpage for the raw files: https://gpm.nasa.gov/data/directory). They are acquired to enable the use of both the uncorrected measured radar reflectivities (2A.DPR) and the combined radar-radiometer retrievals of precipitation rate and water content (Grecu et al. 2016; Olson 2022). Data are sub-sampled to only convectively labeled profiles from the GPM algorithm (i.e., Awaka et al. 2021) and profiles that extend at least 5 km above the surface elevation, where the top was determined from the GPM storm top algorithm (heightStormTop). These criteria were used to isolate deep convection. Note that both the raw measured profiles as well as the quality controlled profiles (i.e., surface echo and noise above cloud top removed) are included in the dataset.