SGP97 Upper Air: DOE ARM 50 MHz Profiler RASS
The Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Southern Great Plains (SGP) 50 MHz Radar Wind Profiler and Radio Acoustic Sounding System (RASS) Vertical Profiles is one of various data sets provided for the Southern Great Plains 1997 (SGP97) project. This data set contains vertical profiles of virtual temperature and wind speed and direction every hour taken at the Central Facility. This data set covers the period from 1 June through 31 July 1997. The SGP97 domain is approximately 97W to 99W longitude and 34.5N to 37N latitude. These data are in their original NetCDF format. The 50-MHz Radar Wind Profiler/RASS (RWP50) measures wind profiles from (nominally) 2 to 12 km and virtual temperature profiles from 2 to 4 km. It operates by transmitting electromagnetic energy into the atmosphere and measuring the strength and frequency of backscattered energy. Virtual temperatures are recovered by transmitting an acoustic signal vertically and measuring the electromagnetic energy scattered from the acoustic wavefront. The propagation speed of the acoustic wave is proportional to the square root of the virtual temperature. The primary quantities measured with the system are the intensity and Doppler frequency of backscattered radiation. The wind speed is determined from the Doppler frequency of energy scattered from refractive index fluctuations (caused primarily by temperature fluctuations) embedded within the atmosphere; the virtual temperature is determined from the Doppler frequency of microwave energy scattered from acoustic energy propagating through the atmosphere. No additional quality control was performed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research/Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS).
Resources in this dataset:
Resource Title: GeoData catalog record.
File Name: Web Page, url: https://geodata.nal.usda.gov/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/8a80ab85-3f5b-4a36-8e46-747452fd5929
Funding
Agricultural Research Service
National Science Foundation
History
Data contact name
Coulter, Richard L.Data contact email
rl_coulter@anl.govPublisher
National Center for Atmospheric Research / Earth Observing LaboratoryIntended use
SGP97 is set in a subhumid environment during early summer. Within this setting, the objectives of SGP97 are (1) to establish that the retrieval algorithms for surface soil moisture developed at higher spatial resolution using truck- and aircraft-based sensors can be extended to the coarser resolutions expected from satellite platforms; (2) to verify spatial-temporal estimators of soil moisture and to examine the utility of pedotransfer function in hydrologic modeling; (3) to examine the feasibility of inferring soil moisture and temperature profiles using surface observations in conjunction with in situ measurements, and (4) to examine the effect of soil moisture on the evolution of the atmospheric boundary layer and clouds over the Southern Great Plains during the warm season.Temporal Extent Start Date
1997-06-01Temporal Extent End Date
1997-07-31Theme
- Not specified
Geographic Coverage
{"type":"FeatureCollection","features":[{"geometry":{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-97.5,36.7],[-97.4,36.7],[-97.4,36.6],[-97.5,36.6],[-97.5,36.7]]]},"type":"Feature","properties":{}}]}ISO Topic Category
- climatologyMeteorologyAtmosphere
Ag Data Commons Group
- Southern Plains
- Long-Term Agroecosystem Research
National Agricultural Library Thesaurus terms
soil water; radar; radio; acoustics; wind speed; temperature profiles; refractive index; summer; satellites; hydrologic models; Great Plains region; warm seasonOMB Bureau Code
- 005:18 - Agricultural Research Service
OMB Program Code
- 005:040 - National Research
Pending citation
- No
Public Access Level
- Public