ARCTAS: Differential Absorption Lidar Data on Arctic Atmospheric Composition

Remotely sensed data from the ARCTAS field campaign, which explored atmospheric processes in the Arctic during 2008. The campaign involved three NASA aircraft equipped with in-situ and remote sensing instrumentation, including Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL), deployed over two three-week periods in April and July. The data were collected by NASA as part of the International Polar Year 2007-2008 to study pollution transport, boreal forest fires, aerosol radiative forcing, and chemical processes.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-range pollution transport to the Arctic based on the campaign's first objective.
• Analyzing the impact of boreal forest fire emissions on radiation and cloud processes based on the second objective.
• Studying aerosol radiative forcing in a rapidly changing climate based on the third objective.
• Investigating chemical processes involving ozone, aerosols, mercury, and halogens based on the fourth objective.

Strengths

• Data originates from a major NASA field campaign with defined scientific objectives.
• Campaign involved coordinated deployments in April and July 2008 to capture seasonal variations.
• Utilized three NASA aircraft (DC-8, P-3B, BE-200) with suites of instrumentation.

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, PDF, ISO, HTML, which may require specialized tools for processing.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Airborne measurements from three NASA aircraft during the ARCTAS field campaign.

Time Range

2008 (specifically April and July deployments)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:23:36.723678; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Arctic region