ACEPOL: ER-2 Aircraft Meteorological and Navigational In-Situ Data

ACEPOL_MetNav_AircraftInSitu_Data contains in-situ meteorological and navigational measurements from the NASA ER-2 aircraft during the Fall 2017 Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar campaign. The dataset supports the assessment of six remote sensing instruments, including four multi-angle polarimeters and two lidars, which observed diverse scenes across the United States. Its primary goal is to improve understanding of aerosol effects on climate by enabling retrieval of aerosol and cloud microphysical and optical parameters.

Use Cases

• Validating aerosol layer height retrievals from near-UV polarimetry and O2 A-band measurements.
• Assessing the performance of multi-angle polarimeters (AirHARP, AirMSPI, SPEX Airborne, RSP) for microphysical property retrieval.
• Providing in-situ context for co-located active lidar measurements from HSRL-2 and CPL.
• Analyzing atmospheric conditions over diverse terrains including urban, desert, forest, and coastal areas.

Strengths

• Data originates from a high-altitude NASA ER-2 aircraft campaign with six coordinated remote sensing instruments.
• Observations cover a wide variety of scene types and atmospheric conditions across the United States.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2017-11-09 vs. 2026-04-10) suggest potential metadata inconsistency.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON)

Collection Method

In-situ measurements collected onboard the NASA ER-2 aircraft during the ACEPOL campaign.

Time Range

Fall 2017

Freshness

2026-04-10 19:02:05.417017

Geography

United States, with observations over urban, desert, forest, coastal ocean, and agricultural areas.