OU/NSSL CLAMPS AERIoe Temperature and Water Vapor Profile Data from LAPSE-RATE

The AERIoe algorithm (Turner and Loehnert 2014, Turner and Blumberg 2018) retrieves profiles of temperature and water vapor mixing ratio, together with cloud properties for a single-layer cloud (i.e., LWP, effective radius), from AERI-observed infrared radiance spectrum. The data can be used to characterize the evolution of the planetary boundary layer and boundary layer clouds.

This dataset was collected at the Moffat Consolidated School in Moffat, CO during the LAPSE-RATE field campaign. The AERIoe retrieval was run at 15-minute resolution to match the cadence of the UAS that was colocated with the CLAMPS facility. This is a physical-iterative retrieval method. The retrieval of thermodynamic profiles from spectral infrared radiance observations is an ill-posed problem, and thus constraints need to be included in the retrieval algorithm to provide physically plausible results. Here, we use a climatology of 2022 radiosonde profiles collected from Denver during July as our prior information in an optimal estimation framework.

As the method uses an optimal estimation framework, a full error covariance matrix of each solution is included in the output file. The 1-sigma uncertainty of each retrieved variable, which is derived from the error covariance matrix, is included for each scientific field and is named "sigma_X", where "X" is the name of the scientific field (e.g., 'temperature'). The information content in the AERI observations, which is in the "dfs" field, on the thermodynamic profiles is primarily concentrated in the lowest 3 km or up to cloud base; the retrieved data should not be used above that level (or used with caution).

References:

Turner, D. D., and U. Löhnert, 2014: Information Content and Uncertainties in Thermodynamic Profiles and Liquid Cloud Properties Retrieved from the Ground-Based Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (AERI). J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., 53, 752–771, https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-13-0126.1.

Turner, D. D., and W. G. Blumberg, 2019: Improvements to the AERIoe Thermodynamic Profile Retrieval Algorithm. IEEE J. Sel. Top. Appl. Earth Observations Remote Sensing, 12, 1339–1354, https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2018.2874968.