Articles | Volume 14, issue 11
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4923-2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4923-2022
Data description paper
 | 
08 Nov 2022
Data description paper |  | 08 Nov 2022

The polar mesospheric cloud dataset of the Balloon Lidar Experiment (BOLIDE)

Natalie Kaifler, Bernd Kaifler, Markus Rapp, and David C. Fritts

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Cited articles

Backhouse, T. W.: The luminous cirrus cloud of June and July, Meteorol. Mag., 20, 133–133, 1885. a
Berger, U., Baumgarten, G., Fiedler, J., and Lübken, F.-J.: A new description of probability density distributions of polar mesospheric clouds, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 19, 4685–4702, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-4685-2019, 2019. a, b
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Chu, X., Gardner, C. S., and Roble, R. G.: Lidar studies of interannual, seasonal, and diurnal variations of polar mesospheric clouds at the South Pole, J. Geophys. Rese.-Atmos., 108, 8447, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002JD002524, 2003. a
Short summary
We measured polar mesospheric clouds (PMCs), our Earth’s highest clouds at the edge of space, with a Rayleigh lidar from a stratospheric balloon. We describe how we derive the cloud’s brightness and discuss the stability of the gondola pointing and the sensitivity of our measurements. We present our high-resolution PMC dataset that is used to study dynamical processes in the upper mesosphere, e.g. regarding gravity waves, mesospheric bores, vortex rings, and Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities.
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