DACAPO-PESO

Dynamics, Aerosol, Cloud and Precipitation Observations in the Pristine Environment of the Southern Ocean 

Motivated by the need for an improved process understanding and the current lack of high-quality continuous aerosol-cloud-precipitation datasets for the Southern Ocean region, the project DACAPO-PESO was realized by Leibniz Institute of Tropospheric Research, Leipzig, Germany and partners from University of Leipzig and University of Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile (http://dacapo.tropos.de). In the frame of YOPP-endorsed (Bromwich et al., 2020) DACAPO-PESO, the Leipzig Aerosol and Cloud Remote Observations System (LACROS) has been operated on the campus of University of Magallanes (53°S, 71°W) in the 3-year period from austral spring of 2018 to austral spring 2020. LACROS comprises a set of state-of-the-art remote-sensing instruments such as a 35-GHz scanning polarimetric cloud radar, multi-wavelength polarization Raman lidars, Doppler lidar, micro rain radar, microwave radiometer, laser disdrometer, as well as sensors for direct and diffuse solar and terrestrial radiation. Until September 2019, LACROS was enhanced by a 94-GHz Doppler radar of University of Leipzig. In-situ aerosol instrumentation was installed on the 620-m high peak of Cerror Mirador mountain, 10 km upwind of the LACROS site. The LACROS dataset is available only via the European ACTRIS Cloudnet data portal (CLU 2021). The data already enabled unique insights into the properties of mixed-phase clouds and the reasons for contrasts to their northern-hemisphere counterparts (Radenz et al., 2021) as well as into the temporal evolution of the record-breaking stratospheric smoke plume caused by the Australian wildfires that occurred in January 2019 (Ohneiser et al., 2020)

Platform: Land station, LACROS (Leipzig Aerosol and Cloud Remote Observations System) 

Location: Punta Arenas, Chile, 53.1346°S, 70.8834°W, 9 m a.s.l 

Timing: November 2018 to November 2021

Contacts:

  • Patric Seifert (seifert<@>tropos.de)

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