A new value-added product (VAP) for calculating radiosonde parameters within convective cloud environments is now available for download from the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility.
The Convective Parameters Derived from Radiosonde Data (SONDEPARAM) VAP facilitates the use of ARM radiosonde data sets by providing several standard radiosonde parameters and quantities of interest using common assumptions. SONDEPARAM applies stable and consistent algorithms from Wang et al. (2020) for calculating useful radiosonde convective cloud parameters.
The standard radiosonde parameters include convective available potential energy, convective inhibition, and lifting condensation level/level of neutral buoyancy/level of free convection. Because the calculation of these parameters is highly sensitive to the initial parcel characteristics, several parcel options are included (i.e., surface-based, most unstable, mixed layer).
SONDEPARAM data sets are now available for ARM’s Southern Great Plains (SGP) and Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) atmospheric observatories. Users can access SGP data from January 1, 2020, to November 20, 2021, and ENA data from January 1, 2017, to July 1, 2019.
In addition, scientists can now use SONDEPARAM data from the following ARM field campaigns:
- the 2014 Biogenic Aerosols – Effects on Clouds and Climate (BAECC) campaign in Hyytiälä, Finland
- the 2014–2015 Green Ocean Amazon (GoAmazon2014/15) campaign in Manacapuru, Brazil
- the 2021–2022 TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) near Houston, Texas
- the ongoing Surface Atmosphere Integrated Field Laboratory (SAIL) campaign near Crested Butte, Colorado.
More information about SONDEPARAM can be found on the VAP web page. Additional data from SAIL are expected to be available soon.
For questions or additional information, please contact ARM translator Scott Giangrande or VAP developer Aifang Zhou.
Access SONDEPARAM data in the ARM Data Center. (Go here to create an account to download the data.)
To cite the SONDEPARAM data, please use doi:10.5439/1827079.
Reference: Wang D, MP Jensen, JA D’Iorio, G Jozef, SE Giangrande, KL Johnson, ZJ Luo, M Starzec, and GL Mullendore. 2020. “An Observational Comparison of Level of Neutral Buoyancy and Level of Maximum Detrainment in Tropical Deep Convective Clouds.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 125(16), e2020JD032637, doi:10.1029/2020JD032637.
# # #ARM is a DOE Office of Science user facility operated by nine DOE national laboratories.