The GRIP Doppler Aerosol WiNd Lidar (DAWN) Dataset was collected by the Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN), a pulsed lidar, which operated aboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft during the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) field campaign. he major goal was to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. NASA used the DC-8 aircraft, the WB-57 aircraft and the Global Hawk Unmanned Airborne System (UAS), configured with a suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments that were used to observe and characterize the lifecycle of hurricanes. This campaign also capitalized on a number of ground networks and space-based assets, in addition to the instruments deployed on aircraft from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida ( DC-8), Houston, Texas (WB-57), and NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, California (Global Hawk). Data values include Line-of-Sight (LOS) Winds, calculated vertical profiles of horizontal wind velocity, frequency-domain signal energy and time versus latitude and longitude. Instrument details can be found in the dataset documentation. Data was gathered during August 24, 2010 thru September 22, 2010 over the Atlantic Ocean.

The GRIP Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) dataset was collected by NASA's Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) system, which is an airborne Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system used to measure water vapor, aerosols, and clouds throughout the troposphere. LASE is onboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft and probes the atmosphere using lasers to transmit light in the 815-nm absorption band of water vapor. Pulses of laser light are fired vertically below the aircraft. A small fraction of the transmitted laser light is reflected from the atmosphere back to the aircraft and collected with a telescope receiver. The received light indicates the amount of water vapor along the path of the laser beam. LASE operated in the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment with data spanning between August 13, 2010 through September 25, 2010. The major goal was to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. NASA used the DC-8 aircraft, the WB-57 aircraft and the Global Hawk Unmanned Airborne System (UAS), configured with a suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments that were used to observe and characterize the lifecycle of hurricanes.

PolarWindsII_DAWN_DC8_1 is the Polar Winds II - Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) - DC8 data product. Data collection for this product is complete. Beginning in the fall of 2014, NASA sponsored two airborne field campaigns, collectively called Polar Winds, designed to fly the Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar and other instruments to take airborne wind measurements of the Arctic atmosphere, specifically over and off the coasts of Greenland during Oct-Nov 2014 and May 2015. In particular, Polar Winds conducted a series of science experiments focusing on the measurement and analyses of lower tropospheric winds and aerosols associated with coastal katabatic flows, barrier winds, the Greenland Tip Jet, boundary layer circulations such as rolls and OLEs (Organized Large Eddies), and near surface winds over open water, transitional ice zones and the Greenland Ice Cap. Polar Winds I was based in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and flew DAWN on board the NASA King Air UC-12B during Oct-Nov 2014 while Polar Winds II was based in Keflavik, Iceland and utilized the NASA DC-8 aircraft to fly DAWN and Dropsondes over the Arctic in May 2015. In total, twenty-four individual missions with over 80 hours of research flights were flown in the Arctic region near Greenland and Iceland during Polar Winds. The focus instrument for the wind measurements taken over the Arctic during Polar Winds was the DAWN airborne wind lidar. At a wavelength of 2.05 microns and at 250 mj per pulse, DAWN is the most powerful airborne Doppler Wind Lidar available today for airborne missions. DAWN has previously been flown on the NASA DC-8 during the 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) campaign and on the NASA C-12 for wind field characterization off the coast of Virginia. In addition to DAWN, Polar Winds utilized the High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) dropsonde delivery system developed by Yankee Environmental Services to drop almost 100 dropsondes during Polar Wind II to obtain additional high-resolution vertical wind profiles during most missions. These dropsondes also provided needed calibration/validation for the much newer DAWN measurements.

The GRIP DC-8 Navigation and Housekeeping Data contains aircraft navigational data obtained during the GRIP campaign (15 Aug 2010 - 30 Sep 2010). The major goal was to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. The NASA DC-8 is outfitted with a navigational recording system which in combination with the Research Environment for Vehicle-Embedded Analysis on Linux (REVEAL) provides detailed flight parameters such as airspeed, altitude, roll/pitch/yaw angles, ground speed, flight level wind speed, temperature and many others. The REVEAL system is a configurable embedded system for facilitating integration of instrument payloads with vehicle systems and communication links. REVEAL systems currently serve as onboard data acquisition, processing, and recording systems.

The GRIP Global Hawk Navigation and Housekeeping data was collected from August 15, 2010 to September 24, 2010 during the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) field campaign. The major goal was to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. The Global Hawk is an unmanned Airborne System configured with in situ and remote sensing instruments, including the Lightning Imaging Package (LIP), High Altitude Wind and Rain Profiler (HIWRAP), and High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR). Data was collected for 7 dates and is in the IWGADTS IWG1 format. The dataset also includes XML files containing metadata documenting the parameters and their format collected during each day's flight.

**Overview** The available "readme" file introduces the basics of the Doppler lidar data and offers a detailed description of the variables present in the data files. If you have any further questions about the data and its interpretation, contact either Alan Brewer () or Sunil Baidar (). It is highly recommended to discuss any planned use of the data with NOAA-CSD scientists. For more information, refer to the attached readme. **Data Quality** Refer to attached readme file. **Uncertainty** Refer to attached readme file. **Constraints** Refer to attached readme file.

AEOLUS-CALVAL-DAWN_DC8_1 is the Aeolus CalVal DAWN (Doppler Aerosol WiNd) Lidar Wind Profiles data product. Data was collected using the DAWN instrument on the Douglas (DC-8) Aircraft. Data collection for this product is complete. NASA conducted an airborne campaign from 17 April to 30 April 2019 to: 1) demonstrate the performance of the Doppler Aerosol WiNd Lidar (DAWN) and High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) instruments across a range of aerosol, cloud, and weather conditions; 2) compare these measurements with the European Space Agency Aeolus mission to gain an initial perspective of Aeolus performance in preparation for a future international Aeolus Cal/Val airborne campaign; and 3) demonstrate how weather processes can be resolved and better understood through simultaneous airborne wind, water vapor (WV), and aerosol profile observations, coupled with numerical model and other remote sensing observations. Five NASA DC-8 aircraft flights, comprising 46 flight hours, were conducted over the Eastern Pacific and Southwest U.S., based out of NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, CA and Kona, HI. Yankee Environmental Systems, Inc High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) eXpendable Digitial Dropsondes (XDD) were used to validate the DAWN and Aeolus wind observations. The LaRC Diode Laser Hygrometer instrument, which was integrated on the DC-8 in preparation for another NASA airborne campaign, provided in-situ WV measurements used during one flight to validate HALO and dropsonde WV profile products.

The GRIP DC-8 Dropsonde V3 dataset consists of atmospheric pressure, dry-bulb temperature, dew point temperature, relative humidity, wind direction, wind speed, and fall rate measurements taken during 16 research flights during the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) campaign from August 17, 2010 to September 22, 2010. The GRIP campaign was conducted to better understand how tropical storms form and how these storms develop into major hurricanes. The DC-8 Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) deploys integrated, highly accurate, GPS-located atmospheric profiling dropsondes to measure and record current atmospheric conditions in a vertical column below the aircraft. The dropsondes are ejected from a tube in the underside of the DC-8 aircraft. As the dropsonde descends to the surface via a parachute, it continuously measures and transmits data to the aircraft using a 400 MHz meteorological band telemetry link. Pressure, temperature and relative humidity, as well as GPS-based wind data were collected from 328 dropsondes. These Dropsonde data are in ASCII-csv file format.

PolarWindsI_DAWN_KingAirUC-12B is the Polar Winds I - Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) - KingAirUC-12B data product. Data for this was collected using the DAWN instrument flown on the NASA Langley Beechcraft UC-12B Huron aircraft. Data collection for this product is complete. Polar Winds I was based in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland and flew DAWN on board the NASA King Air UC-12B during Oct-Nov 2014 while Polar Winds II was based in Keflavik, Iceland and utilized the NASA DC-8 aircraft to fly DAWN and Dropsondes over the Arctic in May 2015. In total, twenty-four individual missions with over 80 hours of research flights were flown in the Arctic region near Greenland and Iceland during Polar Winds. The focus instrument for the wind measurements taken over the Arctic during Polar Winds was the DAWN airborne wind lidar. At a wavelength of 2.05 microns and at 250 mj per pulse, DAWN is the most powerful airborne Doppler Wind Lidar available today for airborne missions. DAWN has previously been flown on the NASA DC-8 during the 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) campaign and on the NASA UC-12 for wind field characterization off the coast of Virginia. In addition to DAWN, Polar Winds utilized the High Definition Sounding System (HDSS) dropsonde delivery system developed by Yankee Environmental Services to drop almost 100 dropsondes during Polar Wind II to obtain additional high-resolution vertical wind profiles during most missions. These dropsondes also provided needed calibration/validation for the much newer DAWN measurements. Beginning in the fall of 2014, NASA sponsored two airborne field campaigns, collectively called Polar Winds, designed to fly the Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) lidar and other instruments to take airborne wind measurements of the Arctic atmosphere, specifically over and off the coasts of Greenland during Oct-Nov 2014 and May 2015. In particular, Polar Winds conducted a series of science experiments focusing on the measurement and analyses of lower tropospheric winds and aerosols associated with coastal katabatic flows, barrier winds, the Greenland Tip Jet, boundary layer circulations such as rolls and OLEs (Organized Large Eddies), and near surface winds over open water, transitional ice zones and the Greenland Ice Cap.

CPEXCV-DAWN_DC8_1 are the Doppler Aerosol WiNd lidar (DAWN) image and NetCDF data files collected during the Convective Processes Experiment - Cabo Verde (CPEX-CV) onboard the DC-8 aircraft. Data collection for this product is complete. Seeking to better understand atmospheric processes in regions with little data, the Convective Processes Experiment – Cabo Verde (CPEX-CV) campaign conducted by NASA is a continuation of the CPEX – Aerosols & Winds (CPEX-AW) campaign that took place between August to September 2021. The campaign will take place between 1-30 September 2022 and will operate out of Sal Island, Cabo Verde with the primary goal of investigating atmospheric dynamics, marine boundary layer properties, convection, the dust-laden Saharan Air Layer, and their interactions across various spatial scales to improve understanding and predictability of process-level lifecycles in the data-sparse tropical East Atlantic region. CPEX-CV will work towards its goal by addressing four main science objectives. The first goal is to improve understanding of the interaction between large-scale environmental forcings such as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), Saharan Air Layer, African easterly waves, and mid-level African easterly jet, and the lifecycle and properties of convective cloud systems, including tropical cyclone precursors, in the tropical East Atlantic region. Next, observations will be made about how local kinematic and thermodynamic conditions, including the vertical structure and variability of the marine boundary layer, relate to the initiation and lifecycle of convective cloud systems and their processes. Third, CPEX-CV will investigate how dynamical and convective processes affect size dependent Saharan dust vertical structure, long-range Saharan dust transport, and boundary layer exchange pathways. The last objective will be to assess the impact of CPEX-CV observations of atmospheric winds, thermodynamics, clouds, and aerosols on the prediction of tropical Atlantic weather systems and validate and interpret spaceborne remote sensors that provide similar measurements. To achieve these objectives, the NASA DC-8 aircraft will be deployed with remote sensing instruments and dropsondes that will allow for the measurement of tropospheric aerosols, winds, temperature, water vapor, and precipitation. Instruments onboard the aircraft include the Airborne Third Generation Precipitation Radar (APR-3), lidars such as the Doppler Aerosol WiNd Lidar (DAWN), High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO), High Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) dropsonde system, Cloud Aerosol and Precipitation Spectrometer (CAPS), and the Airborne In-situ and Radio Occultation (AIRO) instrument. Measurements taken by CPEX-CV will assist in moving science forward from previous CPEX and CPEX-AW missions, the calibration and validation of satellite measurements, and the development of airborne sensors, especially those with potential for satellite deployment.