This article provides a summary of the collection of atmospheric data over the near-coastal zone upwind of Barbados during the ATOMIC and EUREC⁴A field campaigns. These data were collected to improve our understanding of the structure and dynamics of the lower atmosphere in the tropical trade-wind regime over the Atlantic Ocean and the influence of that portion of the atmosphere on the development and maintenance of clouds.

This paper describes data collected by uncrewed aircraft operated by the University of Colorado Boulder and Black Swift Technologies during the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – A Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE) field campaign. This effort was conducted in the San Luis Valley of Colorado in July 2018 and included intensive observing of the atmospheric boundary layer. This paper describes data collected by four aircraft operated by these entities.

This paper provides an overview of the Lower Atmospheric Profiling Studies at Elevation – a Remotely-piloted Aircraft Team Experiment (LAPSE-RATE) field campaign, held from 14 to 20 July 2018. This field campaign spanned a 1-week deployment to Colorado's San Luis Valley, involving over 100 students, scientists, engineers, pilots, and outreach coordinators. This overview paper provides insight into the campaign for a special issue focused on the datasets collected during LAPSE-RATE.

Ionospheric irregularities are a common phenomenon in the low-latitude ionosphere. In this paper, we compared simultaneous observations of plasma plumes by the JULIA radar, ionogram spread F generated from ionosonde observations installed at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory, and irregularities observed in situ by Swarm to determine whether Swarm in situ observations can be used as indicators of the presence of plasma plumes and spread F on the ground.

The Jicamarca Radio Observatory is a research facility of the Geophysical Institute of Peru, located near the city of Lima, that has been conducting observations and studies of the equatorial ionosphere for more than 50 years. In these notes we focus to the period of its construction and roughly the first decade of its operation (1960–1974). We emphasize observational and instrumental developments that shaped the capabilities of one of the most powerful incoherent scatter radars in the world.

This paper provides a summary of observations collected at Oliktok Point, Alaska, as part of the Profiling at Oliktok Point to Enhance YOPP Experiments (POPEYE) campaign. The Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP) is a multi-year concentrated effort to improve forecasting capabilities at high latitudes across a variety of timescales. POPEYE observations include atmospheric data collected using unmanned aircraft, tethered balloons, and radiosondes, made in parallel with routine measurements at the site.

We present observations of the Earth's upper atmosphere (ionosphere and thermosphere) near the Equator. Instruments such as cameras and radar systems are used to measure the characteristics of the this region and compare the different observations. One focus of the paper is on structured regions of low density and we find patterns in its development along with other new observations. We also show results of a local increase in temperature near midnight and investigate its extent and evolution.

Results of comparisons between data collected from a VHF Doppler radar and small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are presented. The UAVs, equipped with meteorological sensors, flew nearby the radar up to an altitude of ~ 4.0 km. Both instruments detected the same clear-air refractive index gradients at a vertical scale of ~ 20 m when the vertical stratification was strong. A VHF radar can thus provide a faithful image of the vertical stratification of the atmosphere down to decimeter scales.