Aeolus Satellite Validation Dropsonde Profiles from 2019 Campaign

Dropsonde profiles were collected during a NASA airborne campaign in April 2019 to validate satellite and airborne lidar wind measurements. The dataset includes five DC-8 flights totaling 46 hours over the Eastern Pacific and Southwest U.S., using High Definition Sounding System expendable digital dropsondes. It was created by NASA's Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center to support the calibration and validation of the ESA Aeolus mission and NASA's DAWN and HALO instruments.

Use Cases

• Validating wind profile measurements from the ESA Aeolus satellite using in-situ dropsonde data.
• Assessing the performance of NASA's DAWN and HALO Doppler lidar instruments across varied weather conditions.
• Analyzing vertical profiles of wind, water vapor, and aerosols to study atmospheric processes.
• Comparing airborne remote sensing observations with numerical model outputs for weather research.

Strengths

• Data collection is documented as complete, covering a focused campaign period.
• Campaign involved 46 flight hours across five dedicated research flights.
• Includes validation data for multiple instruments (Aeolus, DAWN, HALO) and water vapor measurements.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are unknown across all sources.
• License information conflicts: one platform lists 'other-license-specified', others list null.
• Primary data collection ended in April 2019, with no indication of ongoing updates.

Provenance

Source

NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (LARC_ASDC).

Collection Method

Airborne data collection using Yankee Environmental Systems HDSS expendable digital dropsondes launched from a NASA DC-8 aircraft.

Time Range

2019-04 17 to 2019-04-30

Freshness

2026-03-13 16:10:24.863381

Geography

Eastern Pacific Ocean and Southwest United States, based from Palmdale, CA and Kona, HI.