University of Colorado and Black Swift Technologies RPAS-based measurements of the lower atmosphere during LAPSE-RATE

Between 14 and 20 July 2018, small remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) were deployed to the San Luis Valley of Colorado (USA) together with a variety of surface-based remote and in situ sensors as well as radiosonde systems as part of the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE). The observations from LAPSE-RATE were aimed at improving our understanding of boundary layer structure, cloud and aerosol properties, and surface–atmosphere exchange and provide detailed information to support model evaluation and improvement work. The current paper describes the observations obtained using four different types of RPASs deployed by the University of Colorado Boulder and Black Swift Technologies. These included the DataHawk2, the Talon and the TTwistor (University of Colorado), and the S1 (Black Swift Technologies). Together, these aircraft collected over 30 h of data throughout the northern half of the San Luis Valley, sampling altitudes between the surface and 914 m a.g.l. Data from these platforms are publicly available through the Zenodo archive and are co-located with other LAPSE-RATE data as part of the Zenodo LAPSE-RATE community (https://zenodo.org/communities/lapse-rate/, last access: 27 May 2021). The primary DOIs for these datasets are https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3891620 (DataHawk2, de Boer et al., 2020a, e), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4096451 (Talon, de Boer et al., 2020d), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4110626 (TTwistor, de Boer et al., 2020b), and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3861831 (S1, Elston and Stachura, 2020).

Observations of the thermodynamic and kinematic state of the atmospheric boundary layer over the San Luis Valley, CO, using the CopterSonde 2 remotely piloted aircraft system in support of the LAPSE-RATE field campaign

In July 2018, the University of Oklahoma deployed three CopterSonde remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPASs) to take measurements of the evolving thermodynamic and kinematic state of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) over complex terrain in the San Luis Valley, Colorado. A total of 180 flights were completed over 5 d, with teams operating simultaneously at two different sites in the northern half of the valley. A total of 2 d of operations focused on convection initiation studies, 1 d focused on ABL diurnal transition studies, 1 d focused on internal comparison flights, and the last day of operations focused on cold air drainage flows. The data from these coordinated flights provide insight into the horizontal heterogeneity of the atmospheric state over complex terrain. This dataset, along with others collected by other universities and institutions as a part of the LAPSE-RATE campaign, have been submitted to Zenodo (Greene et al., 2020) for free and open access (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3737087).

Measurements from mobile surface vehicles during the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE)

Between 14 and 20 July 2018, small unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) were deployed to the San Luis Valley of Colorado (USA) alongside surface-based remote sensors, in situ sensors, and radiosonde systems as part of the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE). The measurements collected as part of LAPSE-RATE targeted quantities related to enhancing our understanding of boundary layer structure, cloud and aerosol properties and surface–atmosphere exchange and provide detailed information to support model evaluation and improvement work. Additionally, intensive intercomparison between the different unmanned aircraft platforms was completed. The current paper describes the observations obtained using three different types of surface-based mobile observing vehicles. These included the University of Colorado Mobile UAS Research Collaboratory (MURC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Severe Storms Laboratory Mobile Mesonet, and two University of Nebraska Combined Mesonet and Tracker (CoMeT) vehicles. Over the 1-week campaign, a total of 143 h of data were collected using this combination of vehicles. The data from these coordinated activities provide detailed perspectives on the spatial variability of atmospheric state parameters (air temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind) throughout the northern half of the San Luis Valley. These datasets have been checked for quality and published to the Zenodo data archive under a specific “community” setup for LAPSE-RATE (https://zenodo.org/communities/lapse-rate/, last access: 21 January 2021) and are accessible at no cost by all registered users. The primary dataset DOIs are https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3814765 (CU MURC measurements; de Boer et al., 2020d), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738175 (NSSL MM measurements; Waugh, 2020), and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3838724 (UNL CoMeT measurements; Houston and Erwin, 2020).

University of Colorado and Black Swift Technologies RPAS-based measurements of the lower atmosphere during LAPSE-RATE

Between 14 and 20 July 2018, small remotely-piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) were deployed to the San Luis Valley of Colorado (USA) together with a variety of surface-based remote and in-situ sensors, and radiosonde systems as part of the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE). The observations from LAPSE-RATE were aimed at improving our understanding of boundary layer structure, cloud and aerosol properties and surface-atmosphere exchange, and provide detailed information to support model evaluation and improvement work. The current manuscript describes the observations obtained using four different types of RPAS deployed by the University of Colorado Boulder and Black Swift Technologies. These included the DataHawk2, the Talon and the TTwistor (U. of Colorado) and the S1 (Black Swift Technologies). Together, these aircraft collected over 30 hours of data throughout the northern half of the San Luis Valley, sampling altitudes between the surface and 914 m AGL. Data from these platforms are publicly available through the Zenodo archive, and are co-located with other LAPSE-RATE data as part of the Zenodo LAPSE-RATE community (https://zenodo.org/communities/lapse-rate/). The primary DOIs for these datasets are https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3891620 (DataHawk2, de Boer et al., 2020a), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4096451 (Talon, de Boer et al., 2020b), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4110626 (TTWISTOR, de Boer et al., 2020c), and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3861831 (S1, Elston and Stachura, 2020).

Observations of the thermodynamic and kinematic state of the atmospheric boundary layer over the San Luis Valley, CO using remotely piloted aircraft systems during the LAPSE-RATE field campaign

In July 2018, the University of Oklahoma deployed three CopterSonde 2 remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) to take measurements of the evolving thermodynamic and kinematic state of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) over complex terrain in the San Luis Valley, Colorado. A total of 180 flights were completed over five days, with teams operating simultaneously at two different sites in the northern half of the valley. Two days of operations focused on convection initiation studies, one day focused on ABL diurnal transition studies, one day focused on internal comparison flights, and the last day of operations focused on cold air drainage flows. The data from these coordinated flights provides insight into the horizontal heterogeneity of the atmospheric state over complex terrain as well as the expected horizontal footprint of RPAS profiles. This dataset, along with others collected by other universities and institutions as a part of the LAPSE-RATE campaign, have been submitted to Zenodo (Greene et al., 2020) for free and open access (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3737087).

Measurements from mobile surface vehicles during LAPSE-RATE

Between 14 and 20 July 2018, small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) were deployed to the San Luis Valley of Colorado (USA) alongside surface-based remote, in-situ sensors, and radiosonde systems as part of the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE). The measurements collected as part of LAPSE-RATE targeted quantities related to enhancing our understanding of boundary layer structure, cloud and aerosol properties and surface-atmosphere exchange, and provide detailed information to support model evaluation and improvement work. Additionally, intensive intercomparison between the different unmanned aircraft platforms was completed. The current manuscript describes the observations obtained using three different types of surface-based mobile observing vehicles. These included the University of Colorado Mobile UAS Research Collaboratory (MURC), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Severe Storms Laboratory Mobile Mesonet, and two University of Nebraska Combined Mesonet and Tracker (CoMeT) vehicles. Over the one-week campaign, a total of 143 hours of data were collected using this combination of vehicles. The data from these coordinated activities provide detailed perspectives on the spatial variability of atmospheric state parameters (air temperature, humidity, pressure, and wind) throughout the northern half of the San Luis Valley. These data sets have been checked for quality and published to the Zenodo data archive under a specific community set up for LAPSE-RATE (https://zenodo.org/communities/lapse-rate/) and are accessible at no cost by all registered users. The primary dataset DOIs are https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3814765 (CU MURC measurements; de Boer et al., 2020d), https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3738175 (NSSL MM measurements; Waugh, 2020) and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3838724 (UNL CoMeT measurements; Houston and Erwin., 2020).