U.S. Department of EnergyOffice of Scientific and Technical Information
Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) Doppler Lidar & Derived Products
Abstract
This repository contains all processed Doppler‐lidar outputs from the PSU lidar deployed for the Baltimore Social‐Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) project. Vertical Stare Scans (fixed‐beam, vertical profiling): 1 Hz backscatter intensity (m⁻¹ sr⁻¹), signal‐to‐noise ratio (unitless), and Doppler vertical‐velocity (m s⁻¹) on ~30 m range gates, stored as CF-compliant NetCDF. Wind Profiles (horizontal‐wind retrieval): daily NetCDF outputs of retrieved horizontal wind speed (m s⁻¹) and direction (degrees), computed from the angled‐scan returns. Profile Statistics (summary statistics on the vertical velocity): 15 min windows (default) of mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, high-frequency variance, etc., as a function of height; saved as CF-compliant NetCDF files. Boundary Layer Height (BLH) (fuzzy-logic output): 15 min BLH estimates (m), with lower/upper fuzzy bounds (m) and a quality flag (0–4) indicating data status (e.g., no data, good, below range, ran out of signal, cloud-topped). Cloud Base Height (Haar-gradient detection): 15 min estimates of cloud-base height (m) with a cloud-detection quality flag (0–3: none, low, moderate, high). All five product streams are organized by year and date under their own top-level folders (01_Vertical_Stare_Scans/ through 05_Cloud_Height/). Each folder contains a data_/YYYY/ subdirectory with daily CF-compliant NetCDF outputs (96 windows per day at 15 min intervals). Global attributes in each file includemore »
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Pacific Northwest National Lab (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Awarding Entity, Inc.
- Subject:
- Air Quality; BSEC; Boundary Layer; Clouds; Urban; Wind
- OSTI Identifier:
- 2568764
- DOI:
- https://doi.org/10.57931/2568764
Citation Formats
Prince, Nicholas E., Miller, David O., Ahlswede, Benjamin, Li, Xiaowen, Collins, Shamara P., Haupt, Bernd, Miles, Natasha L., Richardson, Scott J., and Davis, Kenneth J. Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) Doppler Lidar & Derived Products. United States: N. p., 2025.
Web. doi:10.57931/2568764.
Prince, Nicholas E., Miller, David O., Ahlswede, Benjamin, Li, Xiaowen, Collins, Shamara P., Haupt, Bernd, Miles, Natasha L., Richardson, Scott J., & Davis, Kenneth J. Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) Doppler Lidar & Derived Products. United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.57931/2568764
Prince, Nicholas E., Miller, David O., Ahlswede, Benjamin, Li, Xiaowen, Collins, Shamara P., Haupt, Bernd, Miles, Natasha L., Richardson, Scott J., and Davis, Kenneth J. 2025.
"Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) Doppler Lidar & Derived Products". United States. doi:https://doi.org/10.57931/2568764. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/2568764. Pub date:Fri Jun 06 04:00:00 UTC 2025
@article{osti_2568764,
title = {Baltimore Social-Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) Doppler Lidar & Derived Products},
author = {Prince, Nicholas E. and Miller, David O. and Ahlswede, Benjamin and Li, Xiaowen and Collins, Shamara P. and Haupt, Bernd and Miles, Natasha L. and Richardson, Scott J. and Davis, Kenneth J.},
abstractNote = {This repository contains all processed Doppler‐lidar outputs from the PSU lidar deployed for the Baltimore Social‐Environmental Collaborative (BSEC) project. Vertical Stare Scans (fixed‐beam, vertical profiling): 1 Hz backscatter intensity (m⁻¹ sr⁻¹), signal‐to‐noise ratio (unitless), and Doppler vertical‐velocity (m s⁻¹) on ~30 m range gates, stored as CF-compliant NetCDF. Wind Profiles (horizontal‐wind retrieval): daily NetCDF outputs of retrieved horizontal wind speed (m s⁻¹) and direction (degrees), computed from the angled‐scan returns. Profile Statistics (summary statistics on the vertical velocity): 15 min windows (default) of mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, high-frequency variance, etc., as a function of height; saved as CF-compliant NetCDF files. Boundary Layer Height (BLH) (fuzzy-logic output): 15 min BLH estimates (m), with lower/upper fuzzy bounds (m) and a quality flag (0–4) indicating data status (e.g., no data, good, below range, ran out of signal, cloud-topped). Cloud Base Height (Haar-gradient detection): 15 min estimates of cloud-base height (m) with a cloud-detection quality flag (0–3: none, low, moderate, high). All five product streams are organized by year and date under their own top-level folders (01_Vertical_Stare_Scans/ through 05_Cloud_Height/). Each folder contains a data_/YYYY/ subdirectory with daily CF-compliant NetCDF outputs (96 windows per day at 15 min intervals). Global attributes in each file include creation history, version (2.0.0), institution, and source. Instrument & MeasurementsThe PSU Doppler Lidar samples aerosol backscatter (m⁻¹ sr⁻¹), signal-to-noise ratio, and radial velocity at ~1 Hz. Vertical stare scans point the beam straight up; after collecting angled scans through multiple elevation angles, the "Wind Profiles" product contains the fully retrieved horizontal wind speed and direction. Data were collected continuously at ~30 m range resolution, with a typical height ceiling of ~12 km. How to Use Open any NetCDF with Python's xarray, MATLAB, or similar CF-compliant tools. Stare scans and angled-scan retrievals (Wind Profiles) are CF-compliant daily NetCDF files. Profile-Statistics, BLH, and Cloud Height files are daily 15 min summaries (96 time steps per file). Inspect the included variables (e.g., vertical_velocity_variance, wind_speed, BLH, cloud_base_height) for your analyses. Use the quality flags (BLH_flag, cloud_flag) to filter out poor-quality retrievals. For more information or questions about processing methods, please contact:Nicholas E. Prince ⟨nec5299@psu.edu⟩Penn State Department of Meteorology & Atmospheric Science},
doi = {10.57931/2568764},
journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jun 06 04:00:00 UTC 2025},
month = {Fri Jun 06 04:00:00 UTC 2025}
}