Information Regarding SGP97-LASE Images

General: Gaps in the data are due to laser eye safety as laser beams were blocked in clouds, aircraft turns, or in the vicinity of other aircraft. Aerosol measurements are at a wavelength of 815 nm.

Resolution: The horizontal display interval for the summary images representing the entire flight are dependent on the length of the flight. A logarithmic color scale is used for all aerosol atmospheric scattering ratios and a linear color scale is used for water vapor and relative aerosol backscatter images.

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Resolution of the data are:

VERTICAL RESOLUTION:

Vertical averaging interval
        Aerosol       60 meters
Water Vapor  510 meters (strong line) (Flight 23 only)
330 meters (weak line)

Vertical display interval for aerosols and water vapor averaged data
30 meters  (all images 0 - 8 km)
15 meters  (all images 0 - 4 km)

HORIZONTAL RESOLUTION:

Horizontal averaging interval
        Aerosol       3 seconds, or approximately 450 meters
Water Vapor  30 seconds, or approximately  4.5 kilometers

Horizontal display interval for averaged data
        Aerosol and Water Vapor                 6.0 seconds, or approximately 900 meters

Times on the images are Universal Time (UT).

The GIF track, aerosol, and water vapor and profile intercomparison image dimensions are 1050 X 850 pixels in order to retain resolution. Your WWW browser/GIF viewer may handle the image in various ways. On displays of less than 1050 X 850 pixels the image may have to be scrolled or the image may get resized, losing some clarity of the fonts.

These airborne DIAL data images are to be used as a reference to the digital data to be archived at the NASA Langley DAAC. Please contact either Dr Ed Browell or Dr Syed Ismail at NASA Langley for access to SGP97-LASE digital data prior to archiving. Images are not to be published without permission from NASA Langley.