Ship-borne ceilometer measurements over the northwestern Pacific and the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean, and at Syowa Station, Antarctica, in the summers of 2010/11 to 2019/20

The present study examined ship-borne ceilometer data collected over the northwestern Pacific Ocean, Indian Southern Ocean, and Syowa Station (69°00′ S, 39°35′ E), Antarctica. The ceilometer observation provides information on clouds and precipitation, especially under clouds on the oceans, where very little information is, and the data are significant for identifying the present state of the warming climate and estimating the future change of the climate. The observations were conducted over the course of ten annual cruises aboard the icebreaker Shirase as part of the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE) program from November to April. The first cruise departed Tokyo, Japan, in November 2010. Observations were then conducted annually until November 2019. Ceilometers emit light vertically upward and measure the intensity of backscattered light in the atmosphere. The obtained data include the vertical profiles of the backscatter intensity, estimated cloud-base heights for each profile, and parameters such as time, location, etc. Here, we publish four different datasets comprising the obtained data as follows: daily files in the manufacturer’s format, annual cruise files in the manufacturer’s format, daily files with decimal expression processed in the projects, and annual cruise files with hourly averaged and decimal expression processed in the projects. The data can be obtained from the National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) at https://doi.org/10.17592/002.2022100393