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phipsimpacts·v1·dataset

Photos and scattering of ice crystals in clouds (winter storms study)

Particle Habit Imaging and Polar Scattering Probe (PHIPS) IMPACTS V1
atmosphere NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 1A PNG
In plain English

What it measures. Stereo photographs of individual ice crystals and cloud particles, capturing their shape, size, and type, along with how they scatter light.

How it's made. Captured by the PHIPS probe flown on NASA's P-3 aircraft during winter storms in the IMPACTS campaign, provided as post-processed PNG image pairs.

How & where you'd use it. Lets researchers study the shapes of snow and ice particles inside storms to better understand snow growth and improve snowfall forecasting.

What's measured

Atmosphere › Clouds › Cloud Microphysics › Particle Size Distribution

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2020-01-18 → 2023-02-28
  • Measured byNASA P-3 (PHIPS)
  • Processing levelLevel 1A
  • Spatial extent-95.243, 33.261, -64.987, 48.237
  • FormatsPNG
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The Particle Habit Imaging and Polar Scattering (PHIPS) Probes IMPACTS dataset consists of cloud particle imagery collected by the Particle Habit Imaging and Polar Scattering (PHIPS) probe onboard the NASA P-3 aircraft during the Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms (IMPACTS) field campaign. IMPACTS was a three-year sequence of winter season deployments conducted to study snowstorms over the U.S. Atlantic Coast (2020-2023). The campaign aimed to (1) Provide observations critical to understanding the mechanisms of snowband formation, organization, and evolution; (2) Examine how the microphysical characteristics and likely growth mechanisms of snow particles vary across snowbands; and (3) Improve snowfall remote sensing interpretation and modeling to significantly advance prediction capabilities. PHIPS allows for the measurement of particle shape, size, and habit. The browse files in this dataset contain the post-processed particle-by-particle stereo images (2 images from different angles) collected by PHIPS during the campaign. The files are available from January 18, 2020, through February 28, 2023, in PNG format.

Get the data

phipsimpacts_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="phipsimpacts",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.