CRAVE CTC Page

Last Update: August 28, 2006

This page provides a calendar of color-coded temperature curtains (CTCs) for the CRAVE WB-57F flights. Click on the thumbnail images in the calendar frames below to examine an enlarged (800x600) PNG image of the thumbnail; click the flight number to see a plot of the flight track. The enlarged PNG images range in size from 30-50 kB. Although CTCs for an entire flight are very useful for understanding what happening on a synoptic scale, they do not use the MTP data at full resolution, and therefore do not adequately illustrate the mesoscale structure of the atmosphere. For comparison of MTP measurements to in situ and remote tracer measurements, full resolution MTP data should be used. This is available from the ESPO archive in the MP files.

The CTC plots presented here are based on data submitted to the archive on August 25, 2006. The CTC plots all have the same temperature range (170 K - 260 K). The flight altitude is indicated by the upper solid black trace, and the tropopause altitude, by the white trace. The black trace near the bottom of the plot is a metric which indicates the quality of the retrieval and ranges from 0 (excellent) to 2 (poor) on the left hand (km) pressure altitude scale (it uses the lowest two tic intervals). In the COMMENTS field I have provided an assessment of the quality of the retrieval. Click on the flight date to obtain a PNG image of the flight track.

These images are presented here only as an aid for other scientists to understand their CRAVE data. It may not be used for any other purpose, or referred to, without written permission from MJ Mahoney of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, go here.

CTC Thumbnail	Date	Comments
	20060109	In Situ Payload Test Flight - Good Flight
	20060130	1st In Situ Science Flight - Scan mechanism froze and was replaced; retrievals not possible
	20060201	2nd In Situ Science Flight - Excellent
	20060202	3rd In Situ Science Flight - Excellent
	20060206	4th In Situ Science Flight - Excellent
	20060207	5th In Situ Science Flight - Excellent
	20060209	6th In Situ Science Flight - Excellent
	20060211	7th In Situ Science Flight - Transit Flight to Ellington Field - Excellent