Dome C Tropospheric Observer

DOCTOR

Funded by: Ministero dell´Universita e della Ricerca  
Calls: PNRA – PROGRAMMA NAZIONALE RICERCHE in ANTARTIDE
Start date: 2016-11-20  End date: 2020-05-20
Total Budget: EUR 37.200,00  INO share of the total budget: EUR 0,00
Scientific manager:    and for INO is: Bianchini Giovanni

Organization/Institution/Company main assignee: CNR – Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO)

other Organization/Institution/Company involved:
Dipartimento di Fisica – Università di Bologna
LENS

other INO’s people involved:

Di Natale Gianluca
Palchetti Luca
Ridolfi Marco


Abstract: The DoCTOr (Dome C Tropospheric Observer) project aims to establish an integrated monitoring system to measure simultaneously, continuously and with a high temporal resolution the water vapor and temperature vertical profiles and the radiative exchanges vs. altitude.
The monitoring will enable us to detect both long-term trends and fast-evolving phenomena, the latter useful in the interpretation of the causes of the first. This task is performed mainly through remote sensing techniques, allowing for the study of a highly unperturbed atmospheric sample. The integration of all the deployed instrumentation in a single acquisition system simplifies greatly the data analysis needed to retrieve the final products: The REFIR-PAD spectroradiometer (already operating in dome C since 2011) will provide spectrally-resolved atmospheric downwelling radiances in the mid to far-infrared spectral range, while a laser diode based profiler will characterize the microphysics state of the first 3 km of the atmosphere. A real-time data analysis system based on an atmospheric radiative transfer model will then retrieve from the acquired data the temperature and water vapor profiles and the cloud optical thickness in almost all weather conditions found at Dome C, with a temporal resolution of about 10 minutes.

The Scientific Results:
1) Simultaneous retrieval of water vapour, temperature and cirrus clouds properties from measurements of far infrared spectral radiance over the Antarctic Plateau
2) Spectral Characterization of the Surface Longwave Radiation over the East Antarctic Plateau
3) Retrieval of Antarctic Cirrus Cloud Micro-Physics from Measurements of Far Infrared Spectral Radiance
4) Two years of spectrally-resolved measurements of the Antarctic downwelling atmospheric radiance within the COMPASS project
5) Can downwelling far-infrared radiances over Antarctica be estimated from mid-infrared information?
6) Antarctic Ice Cloud Identification and Properties Using Downwelling Spectral Radiance From 100 to 1,400 cm(-1)
7) Characterization of the Far Infrared Properties and Radiative Forcing of Antarctic Ice and Water Clouds Exploiting the Spectrometer-LiDAR Synergy