the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
02 Feb 2021
02 Feb 2021
Observations from the NOAA P-3 aircraft during ATOMIC
- 1Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 2NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 3National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 4Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
- 5Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA
- 6NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 7College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
- 8NOAA Aircraft Operation Center, Lakeland, Florida, USA
- 9Department of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- 10Prosensing, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
- 11Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA
- 1Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 2NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 3National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 4Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
- 5Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA
- 6NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado, USA
- 7College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
- 8NOAA Aircraft Operation Center, Lakeland, Florida, USA
- 9Department of Physics, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- 10Prosensing, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA
- 11Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, Florida, USA
Abstract. This paper describes observations obtained during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC) by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Lockheed WP-3D Orion research aircraft based on the island of Barbados during the period Jan 17–Feb 11 2020. The aircraft obtained 95 hours of observations over eleven flights, many of which were coordinated with the NOAA research ship R/V Ronald H. Brown and autonomous platforms deployed from the ship. Each flight contained a mixture of sampling strategies including: high-altitude circles with frequent dropsonde deployment to characterize the large-scale environment; slow descents and ascents to measure the distribution of water vapor and its isotopic composition; stacked legs aimed at sampling the microphysical and thermodynamic state of the boundary layer; and offset straight flight legs for observing clouds and the ocean surface with remote sensing instruments and the thermal structure of the ocean with in situ sensors dropped from the plane. The characteristics of the it in situ observations, expendable devices, and remote sensing instrumentation are described, as is the processing used in deriving estimates of physical quantities. Data archived at the National Center for Environmental Information include flight-level data such as aircraft navigation and basic thermodynamic information (https://doi.org/10.25921/7jf5-wv54); high-accuracy measurements of water vapor concentration from an isotope analyzer (https://doi.org/10.25921/c5yx-7w29); profiles of sea water temperature made with Airborne eXpendable BathyThermographs (AXBTs, https://doi.org/10.25921/pe39-sx75); profiles of radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, and spectrum width from a nadir-looking W-band (94 GHz) radar (https://doi.org/10.25921/n1hc-dc30); estimates of cloud presence, the cloud top location, and the cloud-top radar reflectivity and temperature, along with estimates of 10-m wind speed obtained from remote sensing instruments operating in the microwave and thermal infrared spectral regions (https://doi.org/10.25921/x9q5-9745); and ocean surface wave characteristics from a Wide Swath Radar Altimeter (https://doi.org/10.25921/qm06-qx04). Data are provided as netCDF files following Climate and Forecast conventions.
Robert Pincus et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
-
RC1: 'Comment on essd-2021-11', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Mar 2021
Review of Observations from the NOAA P-3 aircraft during ATOMIC by
Robert Pincus et al.This paper describes the observations that were gathered by the
instruments on the NOAA P-3 during ATOMIC, which was an integral part of
the EUREC4A field campaign. The paper is well written and the figures
are well chosen.I have only minor comments and suggestions.
It would be good to mention EUREC4A in the title or the abstract.
It would be helpful to increase the font size of the figure axes labels.
They are a bit difficult to read, even in the electronic version.Â
Specific commentsLine 54. Add section number for consistency.
Line 61, or elsewhere. Give a reference for AXBTs?
Figure 1. It would be helpful to increase the size of the key and if
possible have larger contrasts between some of the colors. The axes are
not labeled. I think some of the caption would be better placed in the
text.Figure 2. It is obvious, but it would be good to state that the key is
the same as for Fig. 1.Line 89. Choose
Table 2. Mention that the microphysics instruments are made by DMT for
consistency? Perhaps size distribution would be better than individual
particle size. The current wording gives the impression that it's
possible to know about the actual size of each particle.Line 96. Provide reference.Â
Line 100 and elsewhere. SI units?
Lines 113-117. Provide reference.
Line 120. Recommend instead of encourage?
Line 124. Refer to Table 2.
Line 132 and Table 2. It would be useful to state the information about
CIP and PIP in Table 2.ÂLine 166. It would be useful to the readers to provide a brief
description of the radar observations in Figure 6. 19 Jan 2020 instead
of Jun 19.Line 168. Table 2 mentions that the WSRA is a made by Prosensing.
Line 173. Provide a reference?
Line 176. Was the ProSensing device first deployed in 1980?
Table 3. I think it would be helpful to mention in the caption that the
post-processed microphysics data are not included because the processing
has not yet been completed.ÂSection 4.1.3. It would be good to produce the same quicklooks from all
the aircraft that measured aerosols and cloud microphysics. Perhaps a
note could be added to that effect in this paper.Line 218. Hydrometeor rather than cloud drop.
Line 221. Will 10 Hz data also be available on request?Â
Figure 7. What are the units of relative humidity?Â
Line 237. Should that be 5 km? It is difficult to see if T increases
with height -- stable layer? Is it possible to provide a reason for the
one outlier relative humidity profile?Section 4.2.2. It would be useful to know if the variation in
temperature measured is quite normal for such a spatial scale. Provide a
reference? - RC2: 'Comment on essd-2021-11', Anonymous Referee #2, 19 Apr 2021
- AC1: 'Comment on essd-2021-11', Robert Pincus, 14 May 2021
Robert Pincus et al.
Data sets
Subsurface ocean temperature measurements from Airborne eXpendable BathyThermographs (AXBT) deployed from N43 aircraft by NOAA Physical Sciences Lab during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC), Barbados, 2020-01-19 to 2020-02-11 (NCEI Accession 0220436) NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory https://doi.org/10.25921/pe39-sx75
Wind speed, relative humidity, aircraft parameters, and other measurements taken from N43 aircraft in the North Atlantic Ocean by NOAA Physical Sciences Lab and NOAA Aircraft Operations Center during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC), Barbados, from 2020-01-17 to 2020-02-11 (NCEI Accession 0220621) NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory; NOAA Office of Aviation Operations https://doi.org/10.25921/7jf5-wv54
Reflectivity, Doppler velocity, and spectral width taken from W-band radar abouard N43 aircraft in the North Atlantic Ocean by NOAA Physical Sciences Lab during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC), Barbados, from 2020-01-17 to 2020-02-11 (NCEI Accession 0220624) NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory https://doi.org/10.25921/n1hc-dc30
Cloud and precipitation parameters and 10-meter wind speed estimated from remote sensing instruments aboard N43 aircraft in the North Atlantic Ocean by NOAA Physical Sciences Lab during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC), Barbados, from 2020-01-17 to 2020-02-11 (NCEI Accession 0220625) NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory https://doi.org/10.25921/x9q5-9745
Sea surface temperature, wave height, and other measurements from wide-swath radar altimeter (WSRA) aboard N43 aircraft in the North Atlantic Ocean by NOAA Physical Sciences Lab and Prosensing Inc. during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC), Barbados, from 2020-01-17 to 2020-02-11 (NCEI Accession 0220627) NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory; Prosensing Inc. https://doi.org/10.25921/qm06-qx04
Water vapor measurements from isotope analyzer aboard N43 aircraft in the North Atlantic Ocean by NOAA Physical Sciences Lab and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC), Barbados, from 2020-01-17 to 2020-02-11 (NCEI Accession 0220631) NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory; National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) https://doi.org/10.25921/c5yx-7w29
Robert Pincus et al.
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