Description

An extensive validation experiment was conducted in September 1995 from Wallops Island, Virginia, to evaluate the performance of the LASE (Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment) system for the measurement of water vapor profiles under a wide range of atmospheric and solar background conditions. During this experiment, the LASE system was flown on a high-altitude (ER-2) aircraft on ten missions for a total of 60 hours. LASE measurements of tropospheric water vapor were compared with in situ measurements from balloons and aircraft that were flown under the ER-2 and with remote measurements from the ground and from aircraft. A high-altitude aircraft (Lear Jet) was equipped with two in situ hygrometers, and a medium to low altitude aircraft (C-130) had onboard the NASA Langley airborne water vapor DIAL system and two in situ hygrometers. Several radiosondes were launched during each LASE flight, and some of these sondes were part of a concurrent international radiosonde intercomparison campaign sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization. The NASA Goddard Scanning Raman lidar also provided nighttime water vapor profile measurements from the ground. During this field experiment, LASE was also used in a number of atmospheric case studies including measurements of Hurricane Luis, a coastal sea breeze development, a strong cold front, an upper level front, and cirrus clouds.

Resources and Documentation

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Earthdata Forum

PROFESSIONAL HOME PAGE

NASA Lidar Applications Group

NASA Mission Overview of Global Tropospheric Experiment (GTE)

VIEW RELATED INFORMATION

DATA CITATION POLICY

• ASDC data citation policy

GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

• ASDC Data and Information for GTE
• ASDC Data and Information for LASE
• GTE - Data Archive Format Document, September 1994
• Global TroposphericExperiment (GTE) Langley DAAC Project/Campaign Document
• LASE Validation Langley DAAC Data Set Document
• NASA LaRC GTE Data Format Document, August 2000
• NASA.gov LASE Fact Sheet
• Project/Campaign Document: LASE Langley DAAC

INSTRUMENT/SENSOR CALIBRATION DOCUMENTATION

• LIDAR Applications Group overview of the LASE system

MICRO ARTICLE

• NASA Earth Observatory Article: "Critical Chemistry" By Dan Whipple, February 14, 2000

SCIENCE DATA PRODUCT SOFTWARE DOCUMENTATION

• Code for reading LASE data files - Direct File Download (.c)

SCIENCE DATA PRODUCT VALIDATION

• LASE_VALIDATION

Keywords

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