ALBERT

Description: The first results of a campaign of intensive observation of precipitation in Dumont d'Urville, Antarctica, are presented. Several instruments collected data from November 2015 to February 2016 or longer, including a polarimetric radar (MXPol), a Micro Rain Radar (MRR), a weighing gauge (Pluvio2), and a Multi-Angle Snowflake Camera (MASC). These instruments collected the first ground-based measurements of precipitation in the region of Adélie Land (Terre Adélie), including precipitation microphysics. Microphysical observations during the austral summer 2015/2016 showed that, close to the ground level, aggregates are the dominant hydrometeor type, together with small ice particles (mostly originating from blowing snow), and that riming is a recurring process. Eleven percent of the measured particles were fully developed graupel, and aggregates had a mean riming degree of about 30%. Spurious precipitation in the Pluvio2 measurements in windy conditions, leading to phantom accumulations, is observed and partly removed through synergistic use of MRR data. The yearly accumulated precipitation of snow (300m above ground), obtained by means of a local conversion relation of MRR data, trained on the Pluvio2 measurement of the summer period, is estimated to be 815mm of water equivalent, with a confidence interval ranging between 739.5 and 989mm. Data obtained in previous research from satellite-borne radars, and the ERA-Interim reanalysis of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) provide lower yearly totals: 655mm for ERA-Interim and 679mm for the climatological data over DDU. ERA-Interim overestimates the occurrence of low-intensity precipitation events especially in summer, but it compensates for them by underestimating the snowfall amounts carried by the most intense events. Overall, this paper provides insightful examples of the added values of precipitation monitoring in Antarctica with a synergistic use of in situ and remote sensing measurements.

Description: Antarctic precipitation is the main positive component in the surface mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet, thus it is closely related to the evolution of the sea level worldwide. The lack of observations, at both surface and the vertical structure, have hindered the understanding of this important component. Recently a study of the vertical structure of the precipitation in Antarctica have been carried out using micro rain radar (MRR) observations (Durán-Alarcón et al., 2019, TC) at two different sites: Dumont d'Urville (DDU) and Princess Elisabeth (PE) stations. The present collection consists in 2-years of vertical profiles of effective reflectivity (Ze), mean Doppler velocity (W), spectral width (SW) and snowfall rate (S) derived from a K-band vertically-pointing micro rain radar (MRR), obtained at DDU in the framework of the Antarctic Precipitation Remote Sensing from Surface and Space project (APRES3). The observation range of the profiles is between 300 m and 3 km above ground level, with 100m and 1h of vertical and temporal resolutions, respectively. Vertical profiles were separated into surface precipitation and virga (i.e., precipitation that completely sublimes before reaching the surface) to evaluate the impact of virga on the structure of the vertical profiles. The strong katabatic winds blowing at DDU induce a decrease in Ze near to the ground due to the sublimation of the snowfall particles, and the W and SW increases as the height decreases. It was observed that virga is a frequent phenomenon at DDU, since more than a third (36%) of the profiles of precipitation observed with MRR corresponded to virga cases (more details in Durán-Alarcón et al., 2019, TC). This unique dataset of Antarctic precipitation observations in the low troposphere represents a great opportunity to better understand the current numerical models and satellite observations.

Description: This dataset presents data from a precipitation radar (METEK MRR-2) deployed in late 2015 at the Dumont d'Urville station located on the Petrels Island, coastal Adélie Land, East Antarctica (longitude 140.0014, latitude -66.6628, elevation 41m) in the context of the APRES3 project (Antarctic Precipitation, Remote Sensing from Surface and Space, see Genthon et al. 2018). 7 years of MRR (Micro Rain Radar) data from November 2015 to April 2023 included are gathered, ranging from 300 m to 3000 m a.g.l. with a vertical resolution of 100 m. Files attached contain the 1-min MRR source variables (radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, signal-to-noise ratio and a quality flag) computed with the Maahn and Kollias (2012) algorithm in zipped netCDF format. Approximately 6% of timesteps are missing due to maintenance operations or power outages. Profiles are filled with NaNs when no precipitation signal is detected. This dataset also contains the MRR hourly precipitation profile estimates in mm/hr, that could for instance be used for climate model evaluation along the vertical. Wiener et al. (2023) presents and analyses the 7 years of data, and particularly details the processing steps used to obtain the MRR precipitation profiles by means of a local Z-S relation with a colocated snow gauge. 1-min data from the snow gauge are also available to enable users to derive their own Z-S relation with different processing steps.

Description: This dataset contains radar measurements, as well as ground-based observations of hydrometeors collected in the Gangwon-do province in South-Korea. It includes observations from an X-band dual-polarisation Doppler radar, a W-band Doppler cloud profiler, a multi-angle snowflake camera and a two-dimensional video disdrometer. Classifications of hydrometeor types based on dual-polarisation measurements and snowflake photographs are also available. The dataset covers the period from 15 November 2017 to 18 March 2018 and features nine precipitations events with a total accumulation of 195 mm of equivalent liquid precipitation.

Description: This dataset contains radar and ground-based measurements of precipitation collected from 08 to 10 January 2019 at Davis station, Antarctica. It includes observations from an X-band dual-polarisation Doppler radar, a W-band Doppler cloud profiler, a VHF wind profiler, and a Raman Lidar. A classification of hydrometeor types based on dual-polarisation measurements is also available. The dual-frequency ratio based on the X-band and W-band reflectivity measurements is made available on a common grid. WRF simulations at 27, 9, 3, and 1 km resolution centred around Davis are provided. Finally, automatic weather station and radiosounding measurements are also included.