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        The TCSP field experiment flew 12 NASA ER-2 science flights, including missions to Hurricanes Dennis and Emily, Tropical Storm Gert and an eastern Pacific mesoscale complex that may possibly have further developed into Tropical Storm Eugene.
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        Based at the Naval Air Station Key West in Florida, researchers in August 2002 chased down thunderstorms using an uninhabited aerial vehicle, or "UAV", allowing them to achieve dual goals of gathering weather data safely and testing new aircraft technology. This marked the first time a UAV was used to conduct lightning research.
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DOCUMENTATION

Documentation

Guide Documents

Dataset PI Documents

Dataset Software

TCSP ER-2 Doppler Radar (EDOP)

Table of Contents

Introduction
Instrument Description
Documentation
File Naming Convention		 Data Format
References
Contact Information

Introduction

The ER-2 Doppler radar (EDOP) data were collected in support of The Tropical Cloud Systems and Processes mission (TCSP), conducted by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in Costa Rica throughout July 2005. The TCSP mission collected data for research and documentation of "cyclogenesis", the interaction of temperature, humidity, precipitation, wind and air pressure that creates ideal birthing conditions for tropical storms, hurricanes and related phenomena. The goal of this mission was to help us better understand how hurricanes and other tropical storms are formed and intensify.

The ER-2 Doppler radar is an X-band (9.6 GHz) fully-coherent pulsed Doppler radar, and is mounted in the nose of ER-2 aircraft. EDOP measures the vertical reflectivity and wind structure of mesoscale precipitation systems.

Instrument Description

EDOP consists of one pitch-stabilized nadir pointing radar beam, and one forward pointing beam (33 degree ahead of nadir). The beam width of the antenna is 3 degrees in the vertical and horizontal directions, which, for a 20 km altitude yields a nadir footprint at the surface of 1 km. This allows for mapping of time height sections of reflectivity and Doppler winds within the precipitation region from which vertical air motions can be obtained. In addition, the forward beam measures linear depolarization ratio (LDR), which provides useful information on the cloud micro-physical properties. The characteristics of EDOP are as follows:

Frequency / Wavelength: 9.6 GHz / 3.12 cm
Peak Transmit Power: 15 kW
Pulse Repetition Frequency: 4.4 kHz
Pulse Width: .5 micro-sec
Antenna Beam Widths: 2.9 deg
Antenna Gain: 36 dB

Data System:

EDOP utilizes real-time, digital IF processing to provide reflectivity and pulse pair velocity estimates. NCAR's VIRAQ and quad digital receiver hardware provides matched filtering, amplitude, and in-phase/ quadrature measurements.

738 range gates; 12bit digitization
37.5 meter gate spacing
data storage 125 kbytes/s; 3gbyte/flight
periodic internal calibrations during flight
pulse repetition frequency=4.4 khz
nyquist velocity=34 m/s
maximum range=34 km

Documentation

Full Instrument documentation for the ER-2 Doppler Radar may be found at the EDOP Home Page. Included with our documentation package are the following files:

UF-IDL.guide.txt - An IDL help guide for the binary data which is in Universal Format (UF).
EDOP-UF.txt - A text version of the Universal format for EDOP binary data (level 1).
ASCII-README.txt - A description of the ASCII data product files.
software.tar - Contains numerous program files to be used with IDL that will extract specific pieces of information from the EDOP binary data files.
formatspec_2_0.pdf - The Gaines-Hipskind ASCII file format specification, version 2.

NOTE: Use of these software files requires the commercial visualization program IDL available from ITT Corporation.

File Naming Convention

Binary Data:

These files are in Universal Format and contain the full reflectivity and Doppler data set. These files are large, ranging from 10-100 MB per flight leg. Currently these data are in BETA release only, and can be obtained directly from the data producer. To obtain files, please use the quicklooks to determine cases you may be interested in. Upon identification of such cases, please contact EDOP data producers and they will arrange the best possible method of data delivery. http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/912/edop/tcsp_edop_data.htm

ASCII Reflectivity Data:

This dataset includes preliminary radar reflectivity products measured by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center ER-2 Doppler Radar (EDOP) during the TCSP field campaign.

The ASCII files are named:

EDYYMMDD_hhmm__REF.ER2 (reflectivity)
EDYYMMDD_hhmm__VEL.ER2 (velocity)

Where, YY=year, MM=month, DD=day, hh=hour, and mm=minute

Browse:

Browse images of reflectivity and Doppler are derived from the Universal Format (UF) data files which are segmented into straight and level flight tracks.

The browse files are named:

edop_YYMMDD_ssss-eeee_v1.gif
edop_YYMMDD_ssss-eeee_v1_merge.gif

Where, YY=year, MM=month, DD=day, ssss=start time(hhmm), eeee=stop time (hhmm), v1=version

Data Format

Binary Data:

These files are in Universal Format and contain the full reflectivity and Doppler data set. These files are large, ranging from 10-100 MB per flight leg. Currently these data are in BETA release only, and can be obtained directly from the data producer. To obtain files, please use the quicklooks to determine cases you may be interested in. Upon identification of such cases, please contact EDOP data producers and they will arrange the best possible method of data delivery. http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/912/edop/tcsp_edop_data.htm

ASCII Reflectivity Data:

The ASCII reflectivity data are in the Gaines-Hipskind ASCII file format. This format specification can be found in the file formatspec_2_0.pdf. The layout and other specifics of the data files can be found in the document ASCII-README.txt. These documents and more are included with the dataset.

References

Caylor, I. J., G. M. Heymsfield, S. W. Bidwell, and S. Ameen, 1994: NASA ER-2 Doppler radar reflectivity calibration for CAMEX Project. NASA Tech. Memo, 104611, 15pp.

Caylor, I. J., G. M. Heymsfield, R. Meneghini, and L.S. Miller, 1996: Correction of sampling errors in ocean surface cross-section estimates from nadir-looking weather radar. J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 13, 203-210.

Geerts, B., G.M. Heymsfield, L. Tian, J.B. Halverson, A. Guillory, and M.I. Mejia, 1999: Hurricane Georges' landfall in the Dominican Republic: detailed airborne Doppler radar imagery. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 81, 999-1018.

Heymsfield, G. M., J. B. Halverson, J. Simpson, L. Tian, 2001: ER-2 Doppler Radar (EDOP) investigations of the eyewall of Hurricane Bonnie during CAMEX-3. Mon. Wea. Rev., 40, 1310-1330.

Heymsfield, G. M., B. Geerts, and L. Tian, 2000: TRMM Precipitation Radar reflectivity profiles compared to high-resolution airborne and ground-based radar measurements. J. Appl. Meteor., 81, 2080-2102.

Heymsfield, G. M., J. B. Halverson, I. J. Caylor, 1999: A wintertime Gulf Coast squall line observed by EDOP airborne Doppler radar. Mon. Wea. Rev., 127, 2928-2949.

Heymsfield, G. M., I. J. Caylor, J. M. Shepherd, W. S. Olson, S. Bidwell, W. C. Boncyk, and S. Ameen, 1996: Structure of Florida thunderstorms using high-altitude aircraft radiometer and radar observations. J. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1736-1762.

Heymsfield, G. M., S. Bidwell, I. J. Caylor, S. Ameen, S. Nicholson, W. Boncyk, L. Miller, D. Vandemark, P. E. Racette, and L. R. Dod, 1996: The EDOP radar system on the high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft. J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 13, 795-809.

Kummerow, C., W. S. Olson, and L. Giglio, 1996: A simplified scheme for obtaining precipitation and vertical hydrometeor profiles from passive microwave sensors. IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sensing.34, 1213-1232.

Meneghini R., S. W. Bidwell, R. Rincon, G. M. Heymsfield, and L. Liao, 2003: Differential-frequency Doppler weather radar: Theory and experiment. Radio Sci., 38, 5-1 to 5-5.

Olson, W. S., C. D. Kummerow, G. M. Heymsfield, and L. Giglio, 1996: A method for combined passive/active microwave retrievals of cloud and precipitation profiles. J. Appl. Meteor., 35, 1763-1789.

Skofronic-Jackson, G. M., J. Wang, G.M. Heymsfield, R. Hood, W. Manning, R. Meneghini, and J. Weinman., 2003: Combined Radiometer Radar Microphysical Profile Estimations with Emphasis on High-Frequency Brightness Temperature Observations. J. Appl. Meteor., 42, 476-487.

Tian, L., Heymsfield, G. M., Srivastava, R. C.. 2002: Measurement of Attenuation with Airborne and Ground-Based Radar in Convective Storms over Land and Its Microphysical Implications. J. Appl.Meteor, 41, 716–733.

Wang, J. R., J. Y. Zhan, and P. Racette, 1997: Storm-associated radiometric signatures in the frequency range of 89-220 GHz. J. Atmos. Oceanic Tech., 14, 13-31.

Heymsfield, G. M., L. Li, L. Tian, M. McGill, Z. Wang, 2003: Thunderstorm generated cirrus observed from X and W-band airborne radar during CRYSTAL-FACE, Preprints 31st AMS Conference on Radar Meteorology, Seattle, WA, 6-12 August.

Lihua Li, G. M. Heymsfield, P. E. Racette, L. Tian, 2003: Calibration of a 94 GHZ airborne cloud radar using measurements from the ocean surface , Preprints 31st AMS Conference on Radar Meteorology, Seattle, WA, 6-12 August.

Racette, P. E., G. M. Heymsfield, L. Li, L. Tian and E. Zenker, 2003: The cloud radar system, Preprints 31st AMS Conference on Radar Meteorology, Seattle, WA, 6-12 August.

Tian, L., G. M. Heymsfield, L. Li, 2003: Stratiform precipitation observed by airborne radar at 94 and 10 GHZ, Preprints 31st AMS Conference on Radar Meteorology, Seattle, WA, 6-12 August.

Tian L., R. Srivastava, G. Heymsfield, L. Li, 2004: Estimation of raindrop size distribution in stratiform rain from dual-wavelength airborne Doppler radars,2nd TRMM Internal Science Conference, 6-10 September, Nara, Japan.

Sayres, D. S., J. V.Ptiiman, E.M. Weinstock, J.G. Anderson, G. Heymsfield, L. Li, A. Fridlind and A.S. Ackerman, 2004: Methods for validation and intercomparison of remote sensing and in situ ice water measurements: Case studies from CRYSTAL-FACE and model results.SPARC, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, August 1-6, 2004.

Evans, F, J.R. Wang, P.E. Racette, G. Heymsfield, L. Li, 2004: Submillimeter-wave radiometric measurements of ice cloudswith COSSIR, Microwave Radiometry and Remote Sensing Applications,February 24-27, Rome, Italy.

Wang Z., G. M. Heymsfield, L. Li, A. J. Heymsfield, 2004: Ice cloud microphysical property retrieval using airborne two-frequency radars.SPIE Asia-Pacific Symposium on Remote Sensing 2004, Honolulu, HI, November 2004.

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