ACTIVATE Falcon: In Situ Aerosol Measurements Over the Western Atlantic

A five-year NASA Earth-Venture campaign from 2020 to 2022 collected 150 coordinated flights over the western North Atlantic. The ACTIVATE project provides data on marine boundary layer cloud systems, atmospheric aerosols, and climate feedbacks. Measurements were taken onboard an HU-25 Falcon aircraft using in-situ instrumentation.

Use Cases

• Analyze aerosol-cloud-meteorology interactions based on coordinated in-situ and remote sensing flight patterns.
• Classify airmass types based on trace gas measurements for pollution analysis.
• Characterize the shallow cumulus cloud regime based on statistical survey and process study flight patterns.
• Study the cooling effect of marine clouds based on data covering more than 45% of the ocean surface.

Strengths

• Data collected over 150 coordinated flights across six deployments.
• Project provides globally-relevant data from a five-year, NASA-funded field campaign.
• In-situ measurements include aerosol, cloud properties, atmospheric state, and trace gases.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• File formats include BIN and ISO, which may require specialized tools for processing.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected onboard an HU-25 Falcon aircraft via in-situ instrumentation during coordinated flights.

Time Range

2020-2022

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 06:55:33.210104; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Western North Atlantic Ocean