Document Type

Data

Publication Date

12-7-2023

Keywords

Optical turbulence, refractive index structure parameter, thermosonde, radiosonde, ballooning, airborne measurements, vertical profile

Abstract

A thermosonde, an instrument that measures very high resolution temperature difference between two fine-wire platinum thermocouples, was attached to a weather balloon and lifted through the atmosphere, collecting observations of optical turbulence, in the spring of 2018 and 2019. The thermosonde collected raw temperature difference measurements, while an onboard Graw DFM-09 radiosonde observed standard meteorological parameters (temperature, air pressure, wind speed, wind direction, relative humidity, and altitude). The Graw meteorological observations are housed in the .txt files, while the raw radiosonde data (containing the raw, encoded thermosonde measurements) are housed in the .gsf files. The decoded voltage and temperature difference measurements are housed in the .1Hz files. Additionally, numerical weather model profiles of standard meteorological variables obtained from the High-resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model are included for observation validation.

Department/Program

Atmospheric Sciences

Instruments

UND thermosonde, Graw DFM-09 radiosonde, and High-resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) weather model

Processing Level

Level 1 and Level 2

Projects

UND/NASA Undergraduate Student Instrument Project (USIP)

File Types

ASCII (.txt, .1Hz, and HRRR*) and XML (.gsf)

DOI

10.31356/data029

Associated Publications

Sorenson, Blake T., James Casler, and David J. Delene, Development at the University of North Dakota of a Digital Thermosonde Instrument for the Study of Atmospheric Optical Turbulence (C_n^2), American Journal of Undergraduate Research, in preparation, 2024.

Comments

Data was processed using the Airborne Data Processing and Analysis (ADPAA) software package found on Sourceforge.net. In order to view the dataset files, please use 7-Zip console or other file compression programs that will decompress tar.gz packages.

Location

Glacial Ridge Field Site near Mentor, Minnesota and Mayville State University campus in Mayville, North Dakota

North Boundary

47.71798

West Boundary

-97.31977

East Boundary

-94.99375

South Boundary

47.40946

Temporal Resolution

1 Hz

Start Date

5-5-2018 5:11 AM

End Date

4-5-2019 4:00 AM

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