Status: this preprint is currently under review for the journal ESSD.
The Arctic Radiation-Cloud-Aerosol-Surface Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) airborne campaign dataset
Patrick C. Taylor,Armin Sorooshian,Rei Ueyama,Sebastian Schmidt,Ihab Abboud,Quincy Allison,Kevin Barry,Sebastian Becker,Holly A. Bender,Joseph R. Bennett,James B. Blair,Niklas Bohn,Linette Boisvert,Matthew D. Brown,Roelof Bruintjes,Anthony Bucholtz,Megan Buzanowicz,Brian Cairns,Filippo Calì Quaglia,Eduard Chemyakin,Bo Chen,Gao Chen,Hong Chen,Yu-Wen Chen,Zezhen Cheng,Swarup China,Dan Chirica,Yonghoon Choi,Peter Colarco,Brian Collister,Ewan Crosbie,Maurice J. Cross,Janet Daniels,Paul DeMott,Joshua P. DiGangi,Alcide Giorgio di Sarra,Glenn S. Diskin,Erica K. Dolinar,Eva-Lou Edwards,Samuel Ephraim,Nikolaos Evangeliou,Romanos Foskinis,Francesca Gallo,Lan Gao,José Luis Gómez-Amo,Daisy Gonzalez,Christine Groot Zwaaftink,Pawan Gupta,Ivan Heckman,Michael Hendrickson,Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario,Ken Hirata,Michelle Hofton,Andrew L. Holen,Ulas Im,Alia L. Khan,Ralph Kahn,Alexei V. Korolev,Sonia Kreidenweis,Thomas Krumpen,Nathan Kurtz,Leslie Lait,Bradley Lamkin,Jack Landy,Nurun Nahar Lata,Paul Lawson,Samuel LeBlanc,Sean Leavor,Jing Li,Thorsten Markus,Hal Maring,Andreas H. Massling,Camille Mavis,Flynn McGinnity,Kerry Meyer,Gabriel Mojica,Richard H. Moore,Parker Morris,Giovanni Muscari,Vikas Nataraja,Amin R. Nehrir,Athanasios Nenes,Edward P. Nowottnick,Matteo Ottaviani,Chelsea Parker,Ryan Patnaude,Michael Perez,Russell J. Perkins,Colten Peterson,Alek Petty,Stevie Phothisane,Chris Polashenski,Kerri A. Pratt,Kayla M. Preisler,John Prytherch,David Rabine,Jens Redemann,Ju-Mee Ryoo,Joseph S. Schlosser,Vanessa Selimovic,Michael A. Shook,Morgan Silverman,Henrik Skov,Alexander Smirnov,Cassidy Soloff,Amy Solomon,Snorre Stamnes,Azusa Takeishi,David R. Thompson,K. Lee Thornhill,Rachel Tilling,Michael Tjernström,Monica Tosco,Pedro C. Valdelomar,David Van Gilst,Jian Wang,Zhien Wang,Andrzej Wasilewski,Manfred Wendisch,Brent Wilder,Edward L. Winstead,Albert Wu,Peng Xian,Lauren M. Zamora,Jiaoshi Zhang,Lei Zhang,Lu Zhang,Luke Ziemba,and Paquita Zuidema
Abstract. The NASA airborne Arctic Radiation-Cloud-aerosol-Surface-Interaction Experiment (ARCSIX) collected a unique data set providing a near-simultaneous characterization of radiative fluxes, surface, cloud, and aerosol particle properties to address science questions on the surface radiation budget, the processes governing the cloud lifecycle, atmospheric composition, and the interactions between the surface and atmosphere. The overarching goal of ARCSIX was to quantify the contributions of surface, clouds, aerosol particles, and precipitation to summer sea ice melt. ARCSIX consisted of two deployments in 2024 (Spring: 2024-05-28 through 2024-06-13 and Summer: 2024-07-25 through 2024-08-15) to capture pre- and post-melt conditions. ARCSIX provided coordinated remote sensing and in situ sampling using three aircraft in a high-flyer/low-flyer configuration. The NASA G-III served as the high-flying remote sensing platform with two lower flying in situ and near-target remote sensor observing platforms, NASA P-3B and SPEC Inc. Learjet. ARCSIX data are well-suited to improve satellite remote sensing capabilities in the Arctic. ARCSIX included an array of sea ice mass balance buoys deployed in the Lincoln Sea that were regularly overflown during the campaign. ARCSIX research flights spanned the Baffin Bay, Lincoln Sea, west and north of the Canadian Archipelago, and the Greenland north and northeast coasts. During the spring deployment, 19 research flights took place covering 114 flight hours: 10 flights and 68 hours by the P-3B and nine flights and 46 hours by the G-III. During summer, 24 research flights covered 136 flight hours: nine flights and 75 hours by the P-3B, five flights and 26 hours by the G-III, and 10 flights and 35 hours by the Learjet. A total of 13 coordinated flights with 2+ aircraft were carried out. This paper describes the ARCSIX flight strategy, instrumentation, and data set access, and usage details. ARCSIX data are publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5067/SUBORBITAL/ARCSIX/DATA001.
Received: 31 Mar 2026 – Discussion started: 24 Jul 2026
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Patrick C. Taylor,Armin Sorooshian,Rei Ueyama,Sebastian Schmidt,Ihab Abboud,Quincy Allison,Kevin Barry,Sebastian Becker,Holly A. Bender,Joseph R. Bennett,James B. Blair,Niklas Bohn,Linette Boisvert,Matthew D. Brown,Roelof Bruintjes,Anthony Bucholtz,Megan Buzanowicz,Brian Cairns,Filippo Calì Quaglia,Eduard Chemyakin,Bo Chen,Gao Chen,Hong Chen,Yu-Wen Chen,Zezhen Cheng,Swarup China,Dan Chirica,Yonghoon Choi,Peter Colarco,Brian Collister,Ewan Crosbie,Maurice J. Cross,Janet Daniels,Paul DeMott,Joshua P. DiGangi,Alcide Giorgio di Sarra,Glenn S. Diskin,Erica K. Dolinar,Eva-Lou Edwards,Samuel Ephraim,Nikolaos Evangeliou,Romanos Foskinis,Francesca Gallo,Lan Gao,José Luis Gómez-Amo,Daisy Gonzalez,Christine Groot Zwaaftink,Pawan Gupta,Ivan Heckman,Michael Hendrickson,Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario,Ken Hirata,Michelle Hofton,Andrew L. Holen,Ulas Im,Alia L. Khan,Ralph Kahn,Alexei V. Korolev,Sonia Kreidenweis,Thomas Krumpen,Nathan Kurtz,Leslie Lait,Bradley Lamkin,Jack Landy,Nurun Nahar Lata,Paul Lawson,Samuel LeBlanc,Sean Leavor,Jing Li,Thorsten Markus,Hal Maring,Andreas H. Massling,Camille Mavis,Flynn McGinnity,Kerry Meyer,Gabriel Mojica,Richard H. Moore,Parker Morris,Giovanni Muscari,Vikas Nataraja,Amin R. Nehrir,Athanasios Nenes,Edward P. Nowottnick,Matteo Ottaviani,Chelsea Parker,Ryan Patnaude,Michael Perez,Russell J. Perkins,Colten Peterson,Alek Petty,Stevie Phothisane,Chris Polashenski,Kerri A. Pratt,Kayla M. Preisler,John Prytherch,David Rabine,Jens Redemann,Ju-Mee Ryoo,Joseph S. Schlosser,Vanessa Selimovic,Michael A. Shook,Morgan Silverman,Henrik Skov,Alexander Smirnov,Cassidy Soloff,Amy Solomon,Snorre Stamnes,Azusa Takeishi,David R. Thompson,K. Lee Thornhill,Rachel Tilling,Michael Tjernström,Monica Tosco,Pedro C. Valdelomar,David Van Gilst,Jian Wang,Zhien Wang,Andrzej Wasilewski,Manfred Wendisch,Brent Wilder,Edward L. Winstead,Albert Wu,Peng Xian,Lauren M. Zamora,Jiaoshi Zhang,Lei Zhang,Lu Zhang,Luke Ziemba,and Paquita Zuidema
Status: open (until 18 Sep 2026)
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
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I reviewed the manuscript sections and figures requested by the editor, and also sections 1 introduction, 2 campaign overview, 3.2 radiation, and 3.3 surface properties. The reviewed parts of the manuscript show a very comprehensive and well written description of the ARCSIX campaign with informative figures and tables. This impressive Arctic campaign involved up to three US aircraft with ample in-situ and active and passive remote-sensing instrumentation. Starting from an airbase in the northwest of Greenland, all aircraft probed the very north of Greenland and Northeast Canada, and the Arctic Ocean / Ice shelf to the North of it during two intense observation phases in the spring and summer of 2024. The purpose was to improve scientific understanding of Arctic Amplification and the interpretation of satellite observations in the Arctic. Concerning the parts I reviewed, I have no objection to publication if my comments herebelow are taken into consideration.
Section 2.3 has only one subsection. I suggest the following simplification:
2.3 Flight Summary
2.4 Meteorology (instead of 2.3.1)
2.5 Summary and Special flight details
Fig 4 would benefit from a km scale
line 458: Table 2 says 5% uncertainty for the DLH (not 10%)
section 3.1.4, MARLi: please specify the typical horizontal and vertical spatial resolution for these lidar measurements. An additional figure or table might be appropriate. Please specify whether the mentioned random and systematic uncertainties are contained as specific variables in the dataset, and whether the dataset contains quality flags for the different issues enumerated at the end of section 3.1.4.
line 473: you probably mean within the first 200km, not 200m
section 3.2: please list the temporal and spatial resolution of all radiation sensors in Table 2 or in an extra table.
line 511: can you quantify the accuracy of the SPN1 calibration?
lines 542, 557 and 561: correct the references to the sections (e.g. section 4.3 instead of 4c)
Table 3, AVAPS: units are Hz, not hz
Fig 13 caption: MA%E denotes...
I have no comments concerning the sections 1, 3.1.5, 3.3, 3.4.1, 4.2 and 4.4, and the Figures 7 and 12.
Patrick C. Taylor,Armin Sorooshian,Rei Ueyama,Sebastian Schmidt,Ihab Abboud,Quincy Allison,Kevin Barry,Sebastian Becker,Holly A. Bender,Joseph R. Bennett,James B. Blair,Niklas Bohn,Linette Boisvert,Matthew D. Brown,Roelof Bruintjes,Anthony Bucholtz,Megan Buzanowicz,Brian Cairns,Filippo Calì Quaglia,Eduard Chemyakin,Bo Chen,Gao Chen,Hong Chen,Yu-Wen Chen,Zezhen Cheng,Swarup China,Dan Chirica,Yonghoon Choi,Peter Colarco,Brian Collister,Ewan Crosbie,Maurice J. Cross,Janet Daniels,Paul DeMott,Joshua P. DiGangi,Alcide Giorgio di Sarra,Glenn S. Diskin,Erica K. Dolinar,Eva-Lou Edwards,Samuel Ephraim,Nikolaos Evangeliou,Romanos Foskinis,Francesca Gallo,Lan Gao,José Luis Gómez-Amo,Daisy Gonzalez,Christine Groot Zwaaftink,Pawan Gupta,Ivan Heckman,Michael Hendrickson,Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario,Ken Hirata,Michelle Hofton,Andrew L. Holen,Ulas Im,Alia L. Khan,Ralph Kahn,Alexei V. Korolev,Sonia Kreidenweis,Thomas Krumpen,Nathan Kurtz,Leslie Lait,Bradley Lamkin,Jack Landy,Nurun Nahar Lata,Paul Lawson,Samuel LeBlanc,Sean Leavor,Jing Li,Thorsten Markus,Hal Maring,Andreas H. Massling,Camille Mavis,Flynn McGinnity,Kerry Meyer,Gabriel Mojica,Richard H. Moore,Parker Morris,Giovanni Muscari,Vikas Nataraja,Amin R. Nehrir,Athanasios Nenes,Edward P. Nowottnick,Matteo Ottaviani,Chelsea Parker,Ryan Patnaude,Michael Perez,Russell J. Perkins,Colten Peterson,Alek Petty,Stevie Phothisane,Chris Polashenski,Kerri A. Pratt,Kayla M. Preisler,John Prytherch,David Rabine,Jens Redemann,Ju-Mee Ryoo,Joseph S. Schlosser,Vanessa Selimovic,Michael A. Shook,Morgan Silverman,Henrik Skov,Alexander Smirnov,Cassidy Soloff,Amy Solomon,Snorre Stamnes,Azusa Takeishi,David R. Thompson,K. Lee Thornhill,Rachel Tilling,Michael Tjernström,Monica Tosco,Pedro C. Valdelomar,David Van Gilst,Jian Wang,Zhien Wang,Andrzej Wasilewski,Manfred Wendisch,Brent Wilder,Edward L. Winstead,Albert Wu,Peng Xian,Lauren M. Zamora,Jiaoshi Zhang,Lei Zhang,Lu Zhang,Luke Ziemba,and Paquita Zuidema
Patrick C. Taylor,Armin Sorooshian,Rei Ueyama,Sebastian Schmidt,Ihab Abboud,Quincy Allison,Kevin Barry,Sebastian Becker,Holly A. Bender,Joseph R. Bennett,James B. Blair,Niklas Bohn,Linette Boisvert,Matthew D. Brown,Roelof Bruintjes,Anthony Bucholtz,Megan Buzanowicz,Brian Cairns,Filippo Calì Quaglia,Eduard Chemyakin,Bo Chen,Gao Chen,Hong Chen,Yu-Wen Chen,Zezhen Cheng,Swarup China,Dan Chirica,Yonghoon Choi,Peter Colarco,Brian Collister,Ewan Crosbie,Maurice J. Cross,Janet Daniels,Paul DeMott,Joshua P. DiGangi,Alcide Giorgio di Sarra,Glenn S. Diskin,Erica K. Dolinar,Eva-Lou Edwards,Samuel Ephraim,Nikolaos Evangeliou,Romanos Foskinis,Francesca Gallo,Lan Gao,José Luis Gómez-Amo,Daisy Gonzalez,Christine Groot Zwaaftink,Pawan Gupta,Ivan Heckman,Michael Hendrickson,Miguel Ricardo A. Hilario,Ken Hirata,Michelle Hofton,Andrew L. Holen,Ulas Im,Alia L. Khan,Ralph Kahn,Alexei V. Korolev,Sonia Kreidenweis,Thomas Krumpen,Nathan Kurtz,Leslie Lait,Bradley Lamkin,Jack Landy,Nurun Nahar Lata,Paul Lawson,Samuel LeBlanc,Sean Leavor,Jing Li,Thorsten Markus,Hal Maring,Andreas H. Massling,Camille Mavis,Flynn McGinnity,Kerry Meyer,Gabriel Mojica,Richard H. Moore,Parker Morris,Giovanni Muscari,Vikas Nataraja,Amin R. Nehrir,Athanasios Nenes,Edward P. Nowottnick,Matteo Ottaviani,Chelsea Parker,Ryan Patnaude,Michael Perez,Russell J. Perkins,Colten Peterson,Alek Petty,Stevie Phothisane,Chris Polashenski,Kerri A. Pratt,Kayla M. Preisler,John Prytherch,David Rabine,Jens Redemann,Ju-Mee Ryoo,Joseph S. Schlosser,Vanessa Selimovic,Michael A. Shook,Morgan Silverman,Henrik Skov,Alexander Smirnov,Cassidy Soloff,Amy Solomon,Snorre Stamnes,Azusa Takeishi,David R. Thompson,K. Lee Thornhill,Rachel Tilling,Michael Tjernström,Monica Tosco,Pedro C. Valdelomar,David Van Gilst,Jian Wang,Zhien Wang,Andrzej Wasilewski,Manfred Wendisch,Brent Wilder,Edward L. Winstead,Albert Wu,Peng Xian,Lauren M. Zamora,Jiaoshi Zhang,Lei Zhang,Lu Zhang,Luke Ziemba,and Paquita Zuidema
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Earth Science Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
Sean Leavor
NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA 23681, USA
ADNET Systems Inc., Bethesda, Maryland
Jing Li
Center for Aerosol Science and Engineering, Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA
Thorsten Markus
NASA Headquarters, Washington DC, 20546, USA
Hal Maring
NASA Headquarters, Washington DC, 20546, USA
Andreas H. Massling
Aarhus University, Department of Environmental Science, 4000, Roskilde, Denmark
Center for Aerosol Science and Engineering, Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA
Center for Aerosol Science and Engineering, Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA
Center for Aerosol Science and Engineering, Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis; St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA
This article summarizes the data sets collected during the Arctic Radiation Cloud aerosol Sea ice Interaction eXperiment (ARCSIX), NASA's most comprehensive Arctic field campaign to date. The overarching goal was to quantify the contributions of surface, clouds, aerosol particles, and precipitation to summer sea ice melt. This paper describes the ARCSIX implementation including the flight strategy, instruments, complementary data sets, access, and usage details.
This article summarizes the data sets collected during the Arctic Radiation Cloud aerosol Sea...
General comments:
I reviewed the manuscript sections and figures requested by the editor, and also sections 1 introduction, 2 campaign overview, 3.2 radiation, and 3.3 surface properties. The reviewed parts of the manuscript show a very comprehensive and well written description of the ARCSIX campaign with informative figures and tables. This impressive Arctic campaign involved up to three US aircraft with ample in-situ and active and passive remote-sensing instrumentation. Starting from an airbase in the northwest of Greenland, all aircraft probed the very north of Greenland and Northeast Canada, and the Arctic Ocean / Ice shelf to the North of it during two intense observation phases in the spring and summer of 2024. The purpose was to improve scientific understanding of Arctic Amplification and the interpretation of satellite observations in the Arctic. Concerning the parts I reviewed, I have no objection to publication if my comments herebelow are taken into consideration.
Section 2.3 has only one subsection. I suggest the following simplification:
2.3 Flight Summary
2.4 Meteorology (instead of 2.3.1)
2.5 Summary and Special flight details
Fig 4 would benefit from a km scale
line 458: Table 2 says 5% uncertainty for the DLH (not 10%)
section 3.1.4, MARLi: please specify the typical horizontal and vertical spatial resolution for these lidar measurements. An additional figure or table might be appropriate. Please specify whether the mentioned random and systematic uncertainties are contained as specific variables in the dataset, and whether the dataset contains quality flags for the different issues enumerated at the end of section 3.1.4.
line 473: you probably mean within the first 200km, not 200m
section 3.2: please list the temporal and spatial resolution of all radiation sensors in Table 2 or in an extra table.
line 511: can you quantify the accuracy of the SPN1 calibration?
lines 542, 557 and 561: correct the references to the sections (e.g. section 4.3 instead of 4c)
Table 3, AVAPS: units are Hz, not hz
Fig 13 caption: MA%E denotes...
I have no comments concerning the sections 1, 3.1.5, 3.3, 3.4.1, 4.2 and 4.4, and the Figures 7 and 12.