WISPER ORACLES data products and processing code

WISPER: Water Isotope System for Precipitation and Entrainment Research

ORACLES: ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS

Processing code to create calibrated time series files and gridded level 3 products from the WISPER system during the NASA ORACLES field campaign. Data files and a brief explanation of the gridded products are available on zenodo. A detailed review of the instrument, measurements, data products, and calibration procedure can be found in Henze et al., 2022 which is also included in this directory (essd-14-1811-2022.pdf).

Background

WISPER is designed to provide in-situ aircraft measurements of atmospheric water concentration and its heavy isotope ratios D/H and 18O/16O for both total water and cloud water concentrations. It outputs time series data which can then be converted to gridded products or used directly.

ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) is a NASA earth science field experiment with three Intensive Observation Periods (IOPs) designed to study key processes that determine the climate impacts of African biomass burning aerosols. More information on the ORACLES field experiment can be found on the NASA ESPO website and in Redemann et al., 2021.

Creating and testing the data products

• First, the raw time series files must be QC'd and calibrated. From a terminal in the top directory run:

cd apply_cal+QC/

python run_fullcal.py

• Next, create the gridded products from the processed time series:

cd ../level3_products/

python curtains_latz.py

python vertical_profiles.py

• Check that the gridded products were created successfully by running:

python verify_verticalprofile_data.py

python verify_curtain_data.py

and verifying that the generated images in verification_verticalprofiles_test.png and verification_curtains_test.png match those in verification_verticalprofiles_ref.png and verification_curtains_ref.png, respectively.

Directory Guide

• Gridded products are created from the QC'd / calibrated time series .ict files located in ./apply_cal+QC/WISPER_calibrated_data/. The processed time series .ict files can be reproduced by running python run_fullcal.py from within the folder ./apply_cal+QC/.

• The gridded products (netCDF) include mean latitude-altitude curtains for each sampling period (./level3_products/wisper_oracles_curtains_*.nc) and individual vertical profiles averaged to 50 m resolution for each sampling period (./level3_products/wisper_oracles_verticalprofiles_*.nc). They can be reproduced by running python curtains_latz.py and python vertical_profiles.py, respectively, from within the folder ./level3_products/.

• Parameter fits to the uncertainty function (see Henze et al., 2022, Section 5.4), are reproduced by running python uncertainty_estimation.py from within the folder ./apply_cal+QC/ and the results are stored in ./apply_cal+QC/uncertainty_params.csv.

!! Additional Folders Required !!

This repo includes all necessary processing scripts. However, several folders containing the data files needed to reproduce the calibrated time series are not in this GitHub repo due to larger storage requirements, contact deanchenze@gmail.com to obtain them:

• ./apply_cal+QC/WISPER_raw_data/
• ./apply_cal+QC/outlier_time_intervals/
• ./apply_cal+QC/P3_merge_data/