CHEESEHEAD CLAMPS observations

The Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors (CHEESEHEAD) experiment was conducted near Falls Park, Wisconsin in mid-summer to early fall 2019 (Butterworth et al., 2021). Primarily sponsored by the National Science Foundation, additional support from NOAA enabled the concurrent deployment of CLAMPS1 and CLAMPS2 at Lakeland and Prentice airports, respectively, for approximately five weeks of data collection. CHEESEHEAD also included radiosonde launches near the WLEF-TV 400-m very tall tower site, which was approximately 45 km away from both CLAMPS locations (north of Prentice, west of Lakeland) and many other instruments. There are additional observations after this time, but the main period of quality data is 19 September 2019 to 10 October 2019.

These data can be accessed on the NOAA National Severe Storms THREDDS Archive. The readme contained here provides information about how to access and available resources for users. These data are also published in the CHEESEHEAD EOL catalog.

The CLAMPS1 (located at Lakeland Airport, 45.92◦ N, 89.73◦ W) DL collected plan position indicator (PPI) scans at 70 ◦ elevation every 20 minutes, and remained in a zenith pointing mode otherwise. The DL provides range-resolved, line-of-sight measurements of radial velocity, intensity (signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]+1), and attenuated backscatter. In the case of PPI scans meant for velocity azimuthal display (VAD) analysis, these data are post-processed to produce profiles of horizontal wind speed and direction. The zenith pointing scans are used for vertical velocity information, and are post-processed to provide turbulence information such as vertical velocity variance. The DL was configured to provide profiles with 18-m vertical spacing. The CLAMPS1 MWR and AERI were both deployed, and thermodynamic profiles as retrieved by the TROPoe physically based algorithm (previous versions known as AERIoe; Turner and Löhnert, 2014) were made available every ten minutes. For different user needs and use cases we provided retrievals using only AERI data, only MWR data, and combining the data from both the AERI and the MWR in the TROPoe retrieval algorithm.

The CLAMPS2 facility (located at Prentice Airport, 45.54◦ N, 90.28◦ W) operated similarly, but the DL collected PPIs at 60 ◦ elevation every 5 minutes. The onboard MWR was deployed similarly, but CLAMPS2’s AERI was damaged in transit and did not operate for CHEESEHEAD. As such, CLAMPS2 retrievals are limited to MWR-only. 

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