ACT-America: Merged Atmospheric Trace Gas Measurements from Aircraft Flights

The Atmospheric Carbon and Transport - America project collected in situ measurements of carbon dioxide, methane, carbon monoxide, ozone, and ethane during flights over the central and eastern United States. NASA used two aircraft platforms, the Beechcraft B200 King Air and the C-130H Hercules, to gather continuous and flask sample data across various surfaces and atmospheric conditions. These merged products provide integrated measurements useful for modeling the transport and fluxes of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane across North America.

Use Cases

• Modeling atmospheric carbon dioxide transport based on merged in situ CO2 measurements.
• Analyzing methane flux patterns across North America based on merged CH4 measurements.
• Studying correlations between trace gases and meteorological conditions based on merged navigation and weather variables.
• Investigating regional atmospheric chemistry based on merged ozone and carbon monoxide data.
• Comparing continuous and discrete flask sample measurements for trace gas concentration validation.

Strengths

• High-quality in situ measurements collected by NASA using two dedicated aircraft platforms.
• Merged data products integrate continuous measurements, flask samples, navigation, and meteorological variables.
• Data averaged to uniform intervals, facilitating use by the modeling community.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Geographic coverage is limited to flights over the central and eastern United States.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Airborne in situ measurements collected via NASA Beechcraft B200 King Air and C-130H Hercules aircraft.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 19:36:23.156301; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Central and eastern United States