Aeolus CalVal: Airborne Meteorological and Navigational Data

NASA's Aeolus CalVal-MetNav_DC8 dataset contains GPS-derived meteorological and navigational data from a 2019 airborne campaign. Five DC-8 flights, totaling 46 flight hours, collected data over the Eastern Pacific and Southwest U.S. to validate satellite and airborne lidar wind, water vapor, and aerosol measurements.

Use Cases

• Validating wind observations from the ESA Aeolus satellite mission using dropsonde data.
• Assessing the performance of Doppler Aerosol WiNd (DAWN) and High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO) instruments across varied conditions.
• Analyzing simultaneous airborne profiles of wind, water vapor, and aerosols to study weather processes.
• Comparing in-situ water vapor measurements from the LaRC Diode Laser Hygrometer with remote sensing products.

Strengths

• Data collection is complete for a focused campaign comprising 46 flight hours across five flights.
• Supports validation of multiple high-profile instruments (DAWN, HALO, Aeolus) with independent measurements from dropsondes.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals importance and formal curation.

Limitations

• Column names and dataset structure are not specified in any source, hindering detailed analysis.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2019-04-30 vs. 2026-03-13) create uncertainty about metadata maintenance.
• Specific license terms are unclear, listed only as 'other-license-specified'.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Data collected using the Global Positioning System (GPS) instrument on the NASA DC-8 aircraft, supplemented by expendable digital dropsondes (XDD) and the LaRC Diode Laser Hygrometer.

Time Range

Campaign conducted from 17 April to 30 April 2019.

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict: 2019-04-30 (nasa_earthdata) and 2026-03-13 (datagov).

Geography

Eastern Pacific Ocean and Southwest United States, based out of NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center (Palmdale, CA) and Kona, HI.