Airborne Lidar Observations of Water Vapor Variability in Tropical Shallow Convective Environment

AbstractThe 2015 Plains Elevated Convection at Night (PECAN) field campaign provided a wealth of intensive observations for improving understanding of interplay between the Great Plains low-level jet (LLJ), mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), and other phenomena in the nocturnal boundary layer. This case study utilizes PECAN ground-based Doppler and water vapor lidar and airborne water vapor lidar observations for a detailed examination of water vapor transport in the Great Plains. The chosen case, 11 July 2015, featured a strong LLJ that helped sustain an MCS overnight. The lidars resolved boundary layer moisture being transported northward, leading to a large increase in water vapor in the lowest several hundred meters above the surface in northern Kansas. A branch of nocturnal convection initiated coincident with the observed maximum water vapor flux. Radiosondes confirmed an increase in convective potential within the LLJ layer. Moist static energy (MSE) growth was generated by increasing moisture in spite of a temperature decrease in the LLJ layer. This unique dataset is also used to evaluate the Rapid Refresh (RAP) analysis model performance, comparing model output against the continuous lidar profiles of water vapor and wind. While the RAP analysis captured the large-scale trends, errors in water vapor mixing ratio were found ranging 0 to 2 g/kg at the ground-based lidar sites. Comparison with the airborne lidar throughout the PECAN domain yielded a RMSE of 1.14 g/kg in the planetary boundary layer. These errors mostly manifested as contiguous dry or wet regions spanning spatial scales of O(10s-100s km).

Download Full-text

Review - Airborne Lidar Observations of Wind, Water Vapor, and Aerosol Profiles During The NASA Aeolus Cal/Val Test Flight Campaign

10.5194/amt-2020-475-rc1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Anonymous

Keyword(s):

Water Vapor ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Test Flight ◽

Lidar Observations

Download Full-text

Convective boundary layer evolution to 4 km asl over High-alpine terrain: Airborne lidar observations in the Alps

Geophysical Research Letters ◽

10.1029/1999gl010928 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 27 (5) ◽

pp. 689-692 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

S. Nyeki ◽

M. Kalberer ◽

I. Colbeck ◽

S. De Wekker ◽

M. Furger ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Boundary Layer ◽

Convective Boundary Layer ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Convective Boundary ◽

The Alps ◽

Lidar Observations

Download Full-text

Characterizing a New England Saltmarsh with NASA G-LiHT Airborne Lidar

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs11050509 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 509 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ian Paynter ◽

Crystal Schaaf ◽

Jennifer Bowen ◽

Linda Deegan ◽

Francesco Peri ◽

...

Keyword(s):

New England ◽

Spartina Alterniflora ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Satellite Observations ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Aerial Imagery ◽

Lidar Data ◽

Terrestrial Lidar ◽

Airborne Lidar Data ◽

Lidar Observations

Airborne lidar can observe saltmarshes on a regional scale, targeting phenological and tidal states to provide the information to more effectively utilize frequent multispectral satellite observations to monitor change. Airborne lidar observations from NASA Goddard Lidar Hyperspectral and Thermal (G-LiHT) of a well-studied region of saltmarsh (Plum Island, Massachusetts, United States) were acquired in multiple years (2014, 2015 and 2016). These airborne lidar data provide characterizations of important saltmarsh components, as well as specifications for effective surveys. The invasive Phragmites australis was observed to increase in extent from 8374 m2 in 2014, to 8882 m2 in 2015 (+6.1%), and again to 13,819 m2 in 2016 (+55.6%). Validation with terrestrial lidar supported this increase, but suggested the total extent was still underestimated. Estimates of Spartina alterniflora extent from airborne lidar were within 7% of those from terrestrial lidar, but overestimation of height of Spartina alterniflora was found to occur at the edges of creeks (+83.9%). Capturing algae was found to require observations within ±15° of nadir, and capturing creek structure required observations within ±10° of nadir. In addition, 90.33% of creeks and ditches were successfully captured in the airborne lidar data (8206.3 m out of 9084.3 m found in aerial imagery).

Download Full-text

Airborne lidar measurements of ozone, water vapor, and aerosols in large-scale atmospheric studies

Proceedings of IGARSS '93 - IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium ◽

10.1109/igarss.1993.322200 ◽

2002 ◽

Author(s):

E.V. Browell

Keyword(s):

Water Vapor ◽

Large Scale ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Lidar Measurements

Download Full-text

Airborne lidar observations in the inflow region of a warm conveyor belt

Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society ◽

10.1002/qj.827 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 137 (658) ◽

pp. 1257-1272 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Andreas Schäfler ◽

Andreas Dörnbrack ◽

Heini Wernli ◽

Christoph Kiemle ◽

Stephan Pfahl

Keyword(s):

Conveyor Belt ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Lidar Observations

Download Full-text

Airborne lidar LEANDRE II for water-vapor profiling in the troposphere I System description

Applied Optics ◽

10.1364/ao.40.003450 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 40 (21) ◽

pp. 3450 ◽

Cited By ~ 81

Author(s):

Didier Bruneau ◽

Philippe Quaglia ◽

Cyrille Flamant ◽

Mireille Meissonnier ◽

Jacques Pelon

Keyword(s):

Water Vapor ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

System Description

Download Full-text

Structure Function Analysis of Water Vapor Simulated with a Convection-Permitting Model and Comparison to Airborne Lidar Observations

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences ◽

10.1175/jas-d-16-0160.1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 74 (4) ◽

pp. 1201-1210

Author(s):

Tobias Selz ◽

Lucas Fischer ◽

George C. Craig

Keyword(s):

Water Vapor ◽

Structure Function ◽

Airborne Lidar ◽

Sensitivity Analyses ◽

Small Scale ◽

Limited Area ◽

Air Mass ◽

Scaling Properties ◽

Air Masses ◽

The Impact

Abstract The spatial scale dependence of midlatitude water vapor variability in the high-resolution limited-area model COSMO is evaluated using diagnostics of scaling behavior. Past analysis of airborne lidar measurements showed that structure function scaling exponents depend on the corresponding airmass characteristics, and that a classification of the troposphere into convective and nonconvective layers led to significantly different power-law behaviors for each of these two regimes. In particular, scaling properties in the convective air mass were characterized by rough and highly intermittent data series, whereas the nonconvective regime was dominated by smoother structures with weaker small-scale variability. This study finds similar results in a model simulation with an even more pronounced distinction between the two air masses. Quantitative scaling diagnostics agree well with measurements in the nonconvective air mass, whereas in the convective air mass the simulation shows a much higher intermittency. Sensitivity analyses were performed using the model data to assess the impact of limitations of the observational dataset, which indicate that analyses of lidar data most likely underestimated the intermittency in convective air masses due to the small samples from single flight tracks, which led to a bias when data with poor fits were rejected. Though the quantitative estimation of intermittency remains uncertain for convective air masses, the ability of the model to capture the dominant weather regime dependence of water vapor scaling properties is encouraging.

Download Full-text