Present weather sensor visibility and precipitation data from the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition

John Prytherch

Measurements of visibility, precipitation type and intensity, and the corresponding the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) weather codes.

The dataset provides rare high quality meteorological observations from sea-ice regions of the Arctic Ocean. They enable analysis of meteorological conditions and provide context for other measurements and analysis associated with the expedition.

The measurements are from the present weather sensor operating on Icebreaker Oden’s 7th deck at 25 m above sea level during the Arctic Ocean 2018 (AO2018, also referred to as MOCCHA-ACAS-ICE) expedition to the central Arctic Ocean in August and September 2018.

Citation

John Prytherch (2019) Present weather sensor visibility and precipitation data from the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre for Climate Research, Stockholm University. https://doi.org/10.17043/oden-ao-2018-present-weather-1

Data description

Data from the MISU Vaisala PWD22 present weather sensor, averaged over either 1 or 30-minute intervals. Three data formats are available: Matlab (.mat), NetCDF (.nc) and comma separated value (.csv) text, with an accompanying readme (.rtf) file.

Comments

Visibility, up to a maximum range of 20km, air temperature and precipitation type and intensity determined by the Vaisala PWD22 present weather sensor installed above Oden’s bridge on the 7th deck, at a height of 27m above sea level. The system was operated as part of the Stockholm University ACAS project. The system additionally reports instantaneous, 15-minute and 60-minute WMO present weather codes.

Until 2018-08-13 20:10, the sensor was set to only report visibility. After this date, the full set of measurements were reported.

Data from the system are combined into a cruise-length file. The data are time-averaged to both 1-minute and 30-minute intervals, to correspond with the micrometeorological averaging periods used for the mast sensors.