Arctic Winter Water Vapor IOP

9 March 2004 - 9 April 2004

Lead Scientist: Ed Westwater

Observatory: nsa, nsa

Measurement of water vapor during the cold arctic winter is very difficult because of the lack of sensitivity of conventional water vapor radiometers to low amounts of water vapor and because of uncertainties during these conditions of radiosondes as well. During this IOP, we deployed well-calibrated radiometers over a broad frequency range (18 to 380 GHz), including several channels near the strong water vapor absorption line at 183.31 GHz. These radiometers were supplemented by 4-times-a-day radiosonde observations, and other in situ observations. The radiometers deployed were also useful in measuring clouds during these cold conditions.

Activity Summary

During the IOP, the Ground-based Scanning Radiometer of NOAA/ETL, and the ARM MicroWave Radiometer and Microwave Profiler, yielded excellent data over a range of conditions. In all, angular-scanned and calibrated radiometric data from 22.345 to 380 GHz were taken. The Precipitable Water Vapor varied about an order of magnitude from 1 to 10 mm, and surface temperatures varied from about -10 to -40 deg. Celcius. Vaisala RS90 radiosondes were launched 4 times daily from the ARM duplex by ETL, once daily from the ARM CART "Great White" site, and 10 dual radiosonde launches of the chilled mirror + RS90 were done by ETL and NASA Wallops Island. The synoptic National Weather Service radiosondes were also archived: in all, about 220 radiosondes were launched. Quick look data from the cloud radar/lidar indicated that clearly identifiable conditions of clear, liquid, mid-level ice, and mixed phase clouds were present. High quality thermal images of the atmosphere were also taken.

Timeline

2010

Cimini D, ER Westwater, and AJ Gasiewski. 2010. "Temperature and Humidity Profiling in the Arctic Using Ground-Based Millimeter-Wave Radiometry and 1DVAR." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 48(3), 10.1109/tgrs.2009.2030500.

2008

Mattioli V, ER Westwater, D Cimini, AJ Gasiewski, M Klein, and V Leuski. 2008. "Microwave and Millimeter-Wave Radiometric and Radiosonde Observations in an Arctic Environment." Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 25(10), 10.1175/2008jtecha1078.1.
Research Highlight

Cimini D, ER Westwater, AJ Gasiewski, M Klein, and V Leuski. 2008. Temperature and humidity profiling in the Arctic using millimeter-wave radiometry. In 10th Specialist Meeting on Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing of the Environment, pp. 113-116. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE.

2007

Cimini D, ER Westwater, A Gasiewski, M Klein, V Leuski, and J Liljegren. 2007. "Ground-Based Millimeter- and Submillimeter-Wave Observations of Low Vapor and Liquid Water Contents." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 45(7), 10.1109/tgrs.2007.897450.

Mattioli V, ER Westwater, D Cimini, J Liljegren, BM Lesht, SI Gutman, and FJ Schmidlin. 2007. "Analysis of Radiosonde and Ground-Based Remotely Sensed PWV Data from the 2004 North Slope of Alaska Arctic Winter Radiometric Experiment." Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 24(3), 10.1175/jtech1982.1.
Research Highlight

2006

Thurairajah B and JA Shaw. 2006. "Cloud statistics measured with the infrared cloud imager (ICI)." IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 43(9), 10.1109/tgrs.2005.853716.

2004

Westwater ER, MA Klein, V Leuski, BL Weber, S Dowlatshahi, JA Shaw, AJ Gasiewski, T Uttal, DA Hazen, JC Liljegren, BM Liesht, D Cimini, BD Zak, and V Mattioli. 2004. The 2004 North Slope of Alaska Arctic Winter Radiometric Experiment. In Fourteenth ARM Science Team Meeting Proceedings, Ed. by Denice Carrothers, pp. 1-16. Albuquerque: Department of Energy.

Liljegren JC and BM Lesht. 2004. Preliminary results with the twelve-channel microwave radiometer profiler at the North Slope of Alaska Climate Research Facility. In Fourteenth ARM Science Team Meeting Proceedings, Ed. by Denice Carrothers, pp. 1-8. Albuquerque: Department of Energy.


View All Related Publications

Campaign Data Sets

IOP Participant Data Source Name Final Data
Albin Gasiewski Microwave Water Radiometer Order Data
Marian Klein Ground-based Scanning Radiometer Order Data
Joseph Shaw Infrared Cloud Imager Order Data