Development of Microwave and Lidar Instrumentation to Enhance the University of Wisconsin Facilities for State-of-the Art Cloud Observations

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This project adds a High-Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) and a 3-band microwave profiler to an existing suite of instrumentation to greatly extend the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Science and Engineering Center's (UW SSEC) ability to remotely sense the atmosphere from its rooftop and from its mobile weather lab. SSEC has developed and deployed Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometers (AERIs) around the world; AERI is a ground-based instrument that routinely measures the downwelling infrared radiance at high spectral resolution. Other existing instrumentation includes a rawinsonde launch and receiver system. A Multi-Filter Rotating Shadowband Radiometer (MFRSR) and Total Sky Imager (TSI) are being acquired using other resources to provide solar derived aerosol optical depth and cloud fraction respectively. Several areas of research will be undertaken with these new instruments by incorporating them into their existing mobile weather laboratory. Example studies include:1) Collaborating with other institutes in lidar measurements of aerosol properties and transport as part of the Regional East Atmospheric Lidar Mesonet (REALM), an air quality monitoring program.2) Combining ground-based and satellite observations to study cirrus cloud properties.3) Resolving differences between GPS integrated water vapor retrievals, and microwave and infrared ground-based passive observations.4) Enhancing the development of meteorological thermodynamic and cloud property retrieval algorithms using combined passive and active observations.5) Improving forward radiative transfer model calculations to support data assimilation studies by using the microwave radiometer to provide calibrated radiances within the microwave region.6) Expanding knowledge of remote sensing cloud microphysical and macrophysical properties.The University of Wisconsin-Madison supports the maintenance of the mobile weather lab and other instrument development through project funding and overhead investment. Scientists and students make use of these ground based and aircraft observations in a variety of research programs. The mobile lab, which will house the instruments, participated in 12 field programs over the last 5 years. With the new instruments this level of field program participation will be maintained, if not increased as a result of increased capability. When not in the field, the mobile weather lab will be accessible to students. A further goal of this program is to increase the involvement of students by better incorporating the facilities into course material. By incorporating instrumentation that supports the research of two faculty members currently not involved in these field programs, the PIs will expand the group of students who will benefit and learn from the mobile lab. By forming alliances with several sister institutions serving significant numbers of students from underrepresented groups, the number and diversity of students utilizing this equipment during research experiences will further increase.