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Falcon 20 operated by SAFIRE
(Airborne environment research service)

Data


Most of the data are available through our FTP site: ftp.latmos.ipsl.fr (contact: julien.delanoe-at-latmos.ipsl.fr)

Campaign (click to see quicklooks)

Period / Location

Field campaign objectives

RASTA / LNG / A-Train overpass

Access

AMMA

Summer 2006 / West Africa

Study of the West African Monsoon

YES / YES / NO

X

CIRCLE II

May 2007 / France-Germany

Better understand cirrus cloud processes involved in their life cycle and validation of satellite observations

YES / YES / YES

X

EUCAARI

Spring 2007 / The Netherland

European integrated pro aerosol cloud climate air quality interactions

YES / YES / YES

X

POLARCAT

Spring 2008 / Sweden

Study of the Arctic Atmosphere

YES / YES / YES

X

MT-AFRICA

Summer 2010 / West Africa

Megha-Tropique preparation

YES / NO / YES

X

LNG-CALIPSO

Autumn 2010 / Atlantic

CALIPSO validation and LNG HRS test

YES / YES / YES

X

MT-MALDIVES / DYNAMO

Autumn 2011 / The Maldives

Megha-Tropique preparation

YES / NO / YES

X

HYMEX

Autumn 2012 / Mediterranean sea

Understand the role of clouds as water reservoirs in high precipitation events

YES / NO / NO

X

HAIC-DARWIN

January-March 2014 / Darwin Australia

HAIC-HIWC campaign

YES / NO / NO

Restricted

HAIC-CAYENNE

May 2015 / Cayenne French Guyana

HAIC-HIWC campaign

YES / NO / YES

Restricted


Campaigns where at least one of the two instruments were available. RALI was aboard the SAFIRE fleet (both ATR42 and Falcon 20). The Falcon 20 is perfectly designed for the high cloud studies with its very high altitude ceiling.

Calibration

During each field experiment a dedicated radar calibration flight is planned. It is the first flight processed in the automated processing chain of RASTA. Once the calibration figure is updated, the rest of the dataset is processed. The calibration of the radar is achieved using the so-called sigma-0 technique (e.g., Li et al, 2005; Bouniol et al. 2008), which assumes that the ocean backscatter at around 10 degrees incidence should be around 7 dB. This calibration technique is expected to be accurate within about 1 dB.

Nature of the data

The LATMOS teams have contributed with the INSU technical division to the set-up of acquisition and data analysis tools. Some of them are presently being integrated in the operational RALI data production. The raw radar and lidar are archived at the labs and available upon request right after the end of the field experiment. The geo-located, cleaned-up, and calibrated radar reflectivities and Doppler velocities and lidar normalized backscatters are generally available three months after the campaign.

The scientific RALI team has developed and continues to develop cloud retrieval techniques to document the previously-described cloud properties. The automated use of these methods has not been generalized yet, but should be made operational soon. The distribution of these cloud and aerosol properties is made on a scientific collaboration basis.

Data policy

Contact julien.delanoe-at-latmos.ipsl.fr to access to the data.