Analysis and Calibration of CRF Raman Lidar Cloud Liquid Water Measurements

The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Raman lidar (RL), located at the Southern Great Plains (SGP) Climate Research Facility (CRF), is a unique state-of-the-art active remote sensor that is able to measure profiles of water vapor, aerosol, and cloud properties at high temporal and vertical resolution throughout the diurnal cycle. In October 2005, the capability of the RL was extended by the addition of a new detection channel that is sensitive to the Raman scattering of liquid water. This new channel permits the system, in theory, to measure profiles of liquid water content (LWC) by the RL. To our knowledge, the ARM RL is the only operation lidar with this capability. The liquid water Raman backscattering cross-section is a relatively weak and spectrally broad feature, relative to the water vapor Raman backscatter signal. The wide bandpass required to achieve reasonable signal-to-noise in the liquid water channel essentially eliminates the ability to measure LWC profiles during the daytime in the presence of large solar background, and thus all LWC observations are nighttime only. Additionally, the wide bandpass increases the probability that other undesirable signals, such as fluorescence from aerosols, may contaminate the observation. The liquid water Raman cross-section has a small amount of overlap with the water vapor Raman cross-section, and thus there will be a small amount of ‘cross-talk’ between the two signals, with water vapor contributing a small amount of signal to the LWC observation. And finally, there is significant uncertainty in the actual strength of the liquid water Raman cross-section in the literature. The calibrated LWC profiles, together with the coincident cloud backscatter observations also made by the RL, can be used to derive profiles of cloud droplet effective radius. By combining these profiles of effective radius in the lower portion of the cloud with the aerosol extinction measurements made below the cloud by the RL, the first aerosol indirect effect can be investigated using a single instrument, thereby reducing the uncertainty associated with aligning the different sampling periods and fields of view of multiple instruments. We have applied a “first principles” calibration to the LWC profiles. This approach requires that the relative differences in optical efficiency between the water vapor and liquid water channels be known; this relative difference is easily computed using the efficiency values of the beam splitters and interference filters in the lidar that were provided by the vendors of these components. The first principles approach then transfers the calibration from the water vapor mixing ratio to the LWC using the difference in the optical efficiency and an interpolated value of the liquid water Raman cross section from the literature, and the better established water vapor Raman cross section. After accounting for all known error sources, the vertical integral of LWC was compared against a similar value retrieved from a co-located ground-based infrared radiometer. The RL and infrared radiometer have significantly different fields of view; thus to compare the two sensors the data were averaged to 5 min intervals where only cloudy samples were included in the average of each. While there is fair scatter in the data (r=0.47), there is also a clear indication of a positive correlation between the infrared and the RL values. The value of the slope of the regression is 0.49, which indicates a tendency of the RL measurements to underestimate the total liquid amount with respect to the infrared retrieval. Research continues to investigate the source of the bias, but the most likely candidate is the large uncertainty in the liquid water Raman cross-section as there have been no direct measurements made of this parameter at the lidar’s laser wavelength of 355 nm. The calibrated LWC profile was then used together with the cloud backscatter coefficient profile from the RL to derive profiles of cloud droplet effective radius and cloud droplet number density. These profiles of cloud droplet size together with the aerosol extinction observed by the same lidar are used to investigate the aerosol indirect effect in several case studies in August 2006. Russo F. “An investigation of Raman lidar measurements and their application to the study of the aerosol indirect effect”, PhD Thesis (2007). Russo F., D. N. Whiteman, D. D. Turner, B. B. Demoz, R. M. Hoff, I. Veselovskii, “Measurements of the Aerosol Indirect Effect using a Raman lidar. Part 1: cloud liquid water measurements”, manuscript in preparation. Russo F., D. N. Whiteman, D. D. Turner, B. B. Demoz, R. M. Hoff, I. Veselovskii, “Measurements of the Aerosol Indirect Effect using a Raman lidar. Part 2: the calculation of IE”, manuscript in preparation

Identification of candidate genes affecting chronic subclinical mastitis in Norwegian Red cattle: combining genome‐wide association study, topologically associated domains and pathway enrichment analysis

The aim of this study was to identify genes associated with chronic subclinical mastitis (SCM) in Norwegian Red (NR) cattle. Twelve SCM traits defined based on fixed threshold for test‐day somatic cell count (SCC) were, together with lactation‐average somatic cell score (LSCS) used for association and pathway enrichment analyses. A GWAS was performed on 3795 genotyped NR bulls with 777K SNP data and phenotypic information from 7 300 847 test‐day SCC observations from 3 543 764 cows. At 5% chromosome‐wide significance level 36 unique SNP were detected to be associated with one or more of the traits. These SNPs were analysed for linked genes using genomic positions of topologically associated domains (TAD). For the SCM traits with SCC >50 000 and >100 000 cells/ml on two test‐days in a row and LSCS, the same top significant genes were identified – checkpoint clamp loader component (RAD17) and cyclin B1 (CCNB1). The SCM traits with SCC >250 000, 300 000, 350 000 or 400 000 cells/ml on two test‐days in a row and D400 (number of days before the first case with SCC >400 000 cells/ml) displayed similar top significant genes: acyl‐CoA thioesterase 2 and 4 (ACOT2; ACOT4). For the traits SCM200_3 (SCC >200 000 cells/ml on three test‐days in a row) and SCM150, SCM200 (SCC >150 000; 200 000 cells/ml on two test‐days in a row) a group of chemokine (C–X–C motif) ligand genes and the Fos proto‐oncogene, AP‐1 transcription factor subunit (FOS) gene, were identified. Further functional studies of these identified candidate genes are necessary to clarify their actual role in development of chronic SCM in NR cattle.publishedVersio

Historical roots of Agile methods: where did “Agile thinking” come from?

The appearance of Agile methods has been the most noticeable change to software process thinking in the last fifteen years [16], but in fact many of the “Agile ideas” have been around since 70’s or even before. Many studies and reviews have been conducted about Agile methods which ascribe their emergence as a reaction against traditional methods. In this paper, we argue that although Agile methods are new as a whole, they have strong roots in the history of software engineering. In addition to the iterative and incremental approaches that have been in use since 1957 [21], people who criticised the traditional methods suggested alternative approaches which were actually Agile ideas such as the response to change, customer involvement, and working software over documentation. The authors of this paper believe that education about the history of Agile thinking will help to develop better understanding as well as promoting the use of Agile methods. We therefore present and discuss the reasons behind the development and introduction of Agile methods, as a reaction to traditional methods, as a result of people's experience, and in particular focusing on reusing ideas from histor

Water vapor measurements by Raman lidar during the ARM 1997 Water Vapor Intensive Observation Period

Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as it is the most active infrared absorber and emitter of radiation, and it also plays an important role in energy transport and cloud formation. Accurate, high resolution measurements of this variable are critical in order to improve the understanding of these processes and thus their ability to model them. Because of the importance of water vapor, the Department of Energy`s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program initiated a series of three intensive operating periods (IOPs) at its Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) site in northern Oklahoma. The goal of these IOPs is to improve and validate the state-of-the-art capabilities in measuring water vapor. To date, two of the planned three IOPs have occurred: the first was in September of 1996, with an emphasis on the lowest kilometer, while the second was conducted from September--October 1997 with a focus on both the upper troposphere and lowest kilometer. The ARM CART site is the home of several different water vapor measurement systems. These systems include a Raman lidar, a microwave radiometer, a radiosonde launch site, and an instrumented tower. During these IOPs, additional instrumentation was brought to the site to augment the normal measurements in the attempt to characterize the CART instruments and to address the need to improve water vapor measurement capabilities. Some of the instruments brought to the CART site include a scanning Raman lidar system from NASA/GSFC, additional microwave radiometers from NOAA/ETL, a chilled mirror that was flown on a tethersonde and kite system, and dewpoint hygrometer instruments flow on the North Dakota Citation. This paper will focus on the Raman lidar intercomparisons from the second IOP

Axion-photon Couplings in Invisible Axion Models

We reexamine the axion-photon couplings in various invisible axion models motivated by the recent proposal of using optical interferometry at the ASST facility in the SSCL to search for axion. We illustrate that the assignment of $U(1)_{PQ}$ charges for the fermion fields plays an important role in determining the couplings. Several simple non-minimal invisible axion models with suppressed and enhanced axion-photon couplings are constructed, respectively. We also discuss the implications of possible new experiments to detect solar axions by conversion to $X$-rays in a static magnetic apparatus tracking the sun.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX fil

Predicting the effect of radiation damage on dark current in a space-qualified high performance CMOS image sensor

The CIS115 is a Teledyne-e2v CMOS image sensor with 1504 × 2000 pixels of 7 μm pitch. It has a high optical quantum efficiency owing to a multi-layer anti-reflective coating and its backside illuminated construction, and low dark current due to its pinned photodiode 4T pixel architecture. The sensor operates in rolling shutter mode with a frame rate of up to 7.5 fps (if using the whole array), and has a low readout noise of ~5 electrons rms. The CIS115 has been selected for use within the JANUS instrument, which is a high resolution camera due to launch on board ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) spacecraft in 2022. After an interplanetary transit time of over 7 years, JUICE will spend 3.5 years touring the Jovian system, studying three of the Galilean moons in particular: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. During this latter part of the mission, the spacecraft and hence the CIS115 sensor will be subjected to the significant levels of trapped radiation surrounding Jupiter. Gamma and proton irradiation campaigns have therefore been undertaken in order to evaluate both ionising and non-ionising dose effects on the CIS115's dark current performance. Characterisations were carried out at expected mission operating temperatures (−35 ± 10oC) both prior to and post-irradiation. Models of the resulting degradation in dark current behaviour will be combined with expected doses during the JUICE mission in order to predict the performance of the CIS115 at the mission end-of-lif

CART and GSFC Raman lidar measurements of atmospheric aerosol backscattering and extinction profiles for EOS validation and ARM radiation studies

The aerosol retrieval algorithms used by the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Multi-Angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) sensors on the Earth Observing Satellite (EOS) AM-1 platform operate by comparing measured radiances with tabulated radiances that have been computed for specific aerosol models. These aerosol models are based almost entirely on surface and/or column averaged measurements and so may not accurately represent the ambient aerosol properties. Therefore, to validate these EOS algorithms and to determine the effects of aerosols on the clear-sky radiative flux, the authors have begun to evaluate the vertical variability of ambient aerosol properties using the aerosol backscattering and extinction profiles measured by the Cloud and Radiation Testbed (CART) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Raman Lidars. Using the procedures developed for the GSFC Scanning Raman Lidar (SRL), the authors have developed and have begun to implement algorithms for the CART Raman Lidar to routinely provide profiles of aerosol extinction and backscattering during both nighttime and daytime operations. Aerosol backscattering and extinction profiles are computed for both lidar systems using data acquired during the 1996 and 1997 Water Vapor Intensive Operating Periods (IOPs). By integrating these aerosol extinction profiles, they derive measurements of aerosol optical thickness and compare these with coincident sun photometer measurements. They also use these measurements to measure the aerosol extinction/backscatter ratio S{sub a} (i.e. lidar ratio). Furthermore, they use the simultaneous water vapor measurements acquired by these Raman lidars to investigate the effects of water vapor on aerosol optical properties

Observations of fog‐aerosol interactions over central Greenland

Supercooled fogs can have an important radiative impact at the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet, but they are difficult to detect and our understanding of the factors that control their lifetime and radiative properties is limited by a lack of observations. This study demonstrates that spectrally resolved measurements of downwelling longwave radiation can be used to generate retrievals of fog microphysical properties (phase and particle effective radius) when the fog visible optical depth is greater than ∼0.25. For 12 cases of fog under otherwise clear skies between June and September 2019 at Summit Station in central Greenland, nine cases were mixed-phase. The mean ice particle (optically-equivalent sphere) effective radius was 24.0 ± 7.8 µm, and the mean liquid droplet effective radius was 14.0 ± 2.7 µm. These results, combined with measurements of aerosol particle number concentrations, provide evidence supporting the hypotheses that (a) low surface aerosol particle number concentrations can limit fog liquid water path, (b) fog can act to increase near-surface aerosol particle number concentrations through enhanced mixing, and (c) multiple fog events in quiescent periods gradually deplete near-surface aerosol particle number concentrations

Magnetized cosmological perturbations

A large-scale cosmic magnetic field affects not only the growth of density perturbations, but also rotational instabilities and anisotropic deformation in the density distribution. We give a fully relativistic treatment of all these effects, incorporating the magneto-curvature coupling that arises in a relativistic approach. We show that this coupling produces a small enhancement of the growing mode on superhorizon scales. The magnetic field generates new nonadiabatic constant and decaying modes, as well as nonadiabatic corrections to the standard growing and decaying modes. Magnetized isocurvature perturbations are purely decaying on superhorizon scales. On subhorizon scales before recombination, magnetized density perturbations propagate as magneto-sonic waves, leading to a small decrease in the spacing of acoustic peaks. Fluctuations in the field direction induce scale-dependent vorticity, and generate precession in the rotational vector. On small scales, magnetized density vortices propagate as Alfv\'{e}n waves during the radiation era. After recombination, they decay slower than non-magnetized vortices. Magnetic fluctuations are also an active source of anisotropic distortion in the density distribution. We derive the evolution equations for this distortion, and find a particular growing solution.Comment: Revised version, typos corrected, to appear in Phys. Rev.