GRIP LIDAR ATMOSPHERIC SENSING EXPERIMENT (LASE) V1

The GRIP Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) dataset was collected by NASA's Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) system, which is an airborne Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system used to measure water vapor, aerosols, and clouds throughout the troposphere. LASE is onboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft and probes the atmosphere using lasers to transmit light in the 815-nm absorption band of water vapor. Pulses of laser light are fired vertically below the aircraft. A small fraction of the transmitted laser light is reflected from the atmosphere back to the aircraft and collected with a telescope receiver. The received light indicates the amount of water vapor along the path of the laser beam. LASE operated in the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment with data spanning between August 13, 2010 through September 25, 2010. The major goal was to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. NASA used the DC-8 aircraft, the WB-57 aircraft and the Global Hawk Unmanned Airborne System (UAS), configured with a suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments that were used to observe and characterize the lifecycle of hurricanes.