Raman Lidar Vertical Profiles Product Expands to Oliktok Point, Alaska

 
Published: 20 March 2023

Plots from top to bottom show particulate backscatter coefficient profile; particulate extinction coefficient profile; particulate depolarization ratio profile; and detected features at the ARM site in Oliktok Point, Alaska, on July 18, 2018. The heights for all four plots cover 0 to over 15 km, AGL. The x-axis (time) covers a full day in UTC.
Plots from top to bottom show particulate backscatter coefficient profile; particulate extinction coefficient profile; particulate depolarization ratio profile; and detected features at the ARM site in Oliktok Point, Alaska, on July 18, 2018. In the bottom plot, HOI refers to horizontally oriented ice crystals.

Data at Oliktok Point, Alaska, are now available from the Raman Lidar Profiles – Feature detection and Extinction value-added product (RLPROF-FEX VAP).

RLPROF-FEX provides vertical profiles of feature detections derived from Raman lidars operated by the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility. Features include aerosol, cloud, precipitation, and hydrometeor phase at 30-meter vertical and 2-minute temporal resolutions (Thorsen et al. 2015; Thorsen and Fu 2015).

RLPROF-FEX also provides corrected Raman lidar measurements of particulate backscatter and extinction coefficient, and depolarization ratio.

Scientists can use the outputs from RLPROF-FEX for studying aerosol and cloud processes, developing climatology of aerosol and cloud properties, and evaluating model simulations.

RLPROF-FEX data from February 25, 2015, through October 27, 2019, at Oliktok Point are now available to access from the ARM Data Center. (Go here to create an account to download the data.)

Please note that lidar signals could be fully attenuated by optically thick clouds, preventing feature detections and backscatter and extinction coefficient estimations above the cloud.

Also, RLPROF-FEX at Oliktok Point will not be processed for 2013–2014 or after 2019 because of instrument and data quality issues. ARM ceased its Oliktok Point site operations in 2021.

More information on RLPROF-FEX is available on the VAP web page. Please send feedback or questions about the data to ARM translator Damao Zhang.

To cite the RLPROF-FEX data, please use doi:10.5439/1373934.

References: Thorsen TJ, Q Fu, RK Newsom, DD Turner, and JM Comstock. 2015. “Automated Retrieval of Cloud and Aerosol Properties from the ARM Raman Lidar. Part I: Feature Detection.” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 32(11), https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-14-00150.1.

Thorsen TJ and Q Fu. 2015. “Automated Retrieval of Cloud and Aerosol Properties from the ARM Raman Lidar. Part II: Extinction.” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 32(11), https://doi.org/10.1175/jtech-d-14-00178.1.

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ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.