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.
