The Development of a Quality Controlled Data Set for the University of Wisconsin High Spectral Resolution Lidar Systems during SEAC4RS

Abstract:

The University of Wisconsin lidar program has deployed two autonomous High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) systems in support of the SEAC4RS campaign with one system operating in Singapore and a second system that was deployed in Huntsville, AL. The systems operate continuously with observations in Singapore from 8/2012 through 11/2013) and from 6/2013 through 11/2013 in Huntsville. The HSRL systems provide direct measurements, in the form of vertical profiles, of the particulate depolarization ratio, extinction coefficient, lidar ratio, and backscatter coefficient.

Since the systems operate continuously the data volume is somewhat large and manual inspection of all the data is not possible, nor efficient for a human operator. For the SEAC4RS campaign we’ve developed new manual quality control (QC) procedures for spot checking the data, as well as refined existing, and implemented new automated quality assurance (QA) algorithms to produce QA data products for end users. The details of the HSRL data quality during the field campaign, and the new QA/QC data products will be discussed.