Abstract. The Balloon Lidar Experiment (BOLIDE) observed polar mesospheric clouds (PMC) along the Arctic circle between Sweden and Canada during the balloon flight of PMC Turbo in July 2018. The purpose of the mission was to study small-scale dynamical processes induced by the breaking of atmospheric gravity waves by high-resolution imaging and profiling of the PMC layer. The primary measured variable of the lidar soundings is the time- and range-resolved volume backscatter coefficient β. These data are available at high resolution of 20 m and 10 s (Kaifler, 2021, https://zenodo.org/record/5722385). This document describes how we calculate β from the BOLIDE photon count data and balloon floating altitude. We compile information relevant for the scientific exploration of this dataset, including statistics, mean values and temporal evolution of parameters like PMC brightness, altitude and occurrence rate. Special emphasis is given to the stability of the gondola pointing, and the effect of resolution on the signal-to-noise ratio and thus the detection threshold of PMC. PMC layers were detected during 49.7 h in total, accounting for 36.8 % of the 5.7 days flight duration and a total of 178924 PMC profiles at 10 s resolution. Up to the present, published results from subsets of this dataset include the evolution of small-scale vortex rings, distinct Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities and two pronounced mesospheric bores. The lidar soundings reveal a wide range of responses of the PMC layer to larger-scale gravity waves and breaking gravity waves including accompanying instabilities that await scientific analysis.

中文翻译：

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气球激光雷达实验极地中层云数据集 BOLIDE

摘要。气球激光雷达实验 (BOLIDE) 在 2018 年 7 月 PMC Turbo 气球飞行期间沿瑞典和加拿大之间的北极圈观察了极地中层云 (PMC)。该任务的目的是研究由破裂引起的小尺度动力过程通过高分辨率成像和 PMC 层剖面分析大气重力波。激光雷达探测的主要测量变量是时间和距离分辨的体积反向散射系数β。这些数据可在 20 m 和 10 s 的高分辨率下获得（Kaifler，2021，https://zenodo.org/record/5722385）。本文档描述了我们如何计算β来自 BOLIDE 光子计数数据和气球漂浮高度。我们汇编了与该数据集的科学探索相关的信息，包括 PMC 亮度、高度和发生率等参数的统计数据、平均值和时间演变。特别强调了缆车指向的稳定性，以及分辨率对信噪比以及PMC检测阈值的影响。在 49.7 小时内共检测到 PMC 层，占 5.7 天飞行时间的 36.8%，在 10 秒分辨率下共检测到 178924 个 PMC 剖面。到目前为止，该数据集子集的已发表结果包括小规模涡环的演变、明显的开尔文-亥姆霍兹不稳定性和两个明显的中层钻孔。