Skin temperature data over the East Antarctic pack ice zone were recorded by the RAPPLS airborne instrument package using a KT-19II infrared pyrometer. The KT-19II infrared pyrometer was manufactured by heitronics, and sees a spectrum of 8-12um. IR and location data were logged to a Windows PC using a serial port logger developed by AAD science technical support. Due to some logging issues, substantial post-processing work was done by the AAD sea ice science group to ensure that recorded temperatures were correctly geolocated. Skin temperature data were not collected on two flights: Alpha [12 September 2007] and Foxtrot [14 September 2007] On two further flights, data were collected but the raw log files were so badly munged that we could not confidently tie locations to temperatures. These were: Tango [30 September 2007] and Uniform [1 October 2007] The data are presented in .csv files for each flight showing time and date. lat, lon, recorded temp [deg K], temp converted to C. To visualise the data, .kmz files that can be viewed in Google Earth or NASA's worldwind virtual globes are provided, one for each flight. Skin temperature is represented by a coloured dot at each measurement point. Clicking on each poijt will show its location and recorded temperature. The description field of each .kmz file provides a colour scale.

This dataset contains the data collected during the RAPPLS (Radar, Aerial Photography, Pyrometer, and Laser Scanning system) flights that were undertaken as a part of the SIPEX II (Sea Ice Physics and Ecosystems Experiment II) Antarctic marine science voyage in September-November 2012. The RAPPLS project involved designing and using a system using a helicopter with mounted sensors to record data while flying over sea ice. The RAPPLS helicopter is an Aerospaciale AS 350 BA "Squirrel" helicopter with a range of scientific equipment mounted to it. These are generally imaging instruments that are used to derive snow and ice properties, such as roughness, surface elevation and skin temperature. The following is a list of instruments used and parameters measured: - 2-8 GHz frequency modulated continuous wave radar, measuring impedance differences between snow and sea ice; - Hasselblad H3D II 50 camera, taking aerial photographs at about 13 cm resolution every 3-5 seconds - Heitronics KT 19 pyranometer, measuring skin surface temperature - Riegl LMS Q240i-60 scanning LiDAR, measuring surface elevation of sea ice above sea level All data are geo-located with a combined inertial navigation and global positioning system, OxTS RT-4003. See Australian Antarctic Division Science Technical Support Project 07006 for detailed Engineering documents. Detailed flight information for each flight is available from WORD documents for each survey. Contained in this dataset are the following files: - A MS Word log file for all flights; - A QGIS map file showing all flights; - A folder for each flight containing the following (named - Date - Fxx - Mission: - A Microsoft Word document explaining the flight intentions, issues, and outcomes (flight log); - A folder of the photos taken by the Hasselblad camera; - A folder of raw and processed INS data: - RD files, which are raw INS and can be opened RT_PostProcess software; - PNG Files showing flight track, created with RT_View software based on NCOM files resulting from RT_PostProcess; - A folder with log files for Errors, Events, LaserScanner, Pyrometer, and INS. This folder also includes Q24 file of raw laser scanner data (purpose written software to analyse the data is available with the 2008 data set); - A folder with time synchronisation log file.