ACEPOL AirHARP: Airborne Polarimetric Aerosol Measurements

Over the United States in Fall 2017, the ACEPOL campaign collected airborne remote sensing data to characterize aerosols and clouds. Measurements from the Airborne Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (AirHARP) instrument on the NASA ER-2 aircraft provide multi-angle, multi-spectral intensity and polarization data. This dataset supports the assessment of polarimeter capabilities for retrieving aerosol and cloud microphysical and optical parameters.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite aerosol retrieval algorithms based on coincident, high-altitude polarimetric observations.
• Assessing the capabilities of different polarimeters for retrieving aerosol layer height and optical properties.
• Studying aerosol properties over diverse land cover types including urban, desert, forest, and coastal areas.
• Improving climate models by providing detailed measurements of aerosol size distribution and chemical composition proxies.

Strengths

• Data was collected as part of a coordinated, multi-instrument NASA campaign (ACEPOL) involving six remote sensing instruments.
• Observations cover a wide variety of scene types and atmospheric conditions, enabling comparative studies.
• The dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata), indicating formal curation.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Source platforms conflict on the last updated date (2026-04-10 vs. 2020-11-20), creating uncertainty about data currency.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), jointly sponsored with the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON).

Collection Method

Remotely sensed measurements collected by the AirHARP instrument onboard the NASA ER-2 high-altitude aircraft.

Time Range

Fall 2017

Freshness

2026-04-10 (most recent update reported, though conflicting with an earlier date)

Geography

United States, with observations over urban, desert, forest, coastal ocean, and agricultural areas based from Palmdale, California.