Articles | Volume 26, issue 21
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-16029-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-16029-2026
Research article
 | 
12 Nov 2026
Research article |  | 12 Nov 2026

Evaluating the representativeness of aircraft sampling strategies for cloud water content in LASSO simulations over the ARM Southern Great Plains (SGP) Site

Jiakun Liang, William I. Gustafson Jr., Dana R. Caulton, and Jennifer D. Small Griswold

Data sets

LASSO Data Bundles W. I. Gustafson et al. https://doi.org/10.5439/1342961

AAFMERGED F. Mei and K. Gaustad https://doi.org/10.5439/1999133

Model code and software

KkristineE/SGP-LES: SGP-LES v1.0.0 – ACP Publication Release Jiakun Liang https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23487510

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Short summary
Aircraft measurements are essential for studying clouds, but capture only limited parts of a cloud field. This study uses high-resolution atmospheric simulations to assess how flight paths, altitude patterns, and speed affect the representativeness of aircraft measurements. The results show that faster flights generally improve agreement and staircase sampling performs consistently well. Cloud tops are harder to capture than cloud bases. These findings help interpret aircraft observations.
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