Airborne CO2 Lidar Measurements Over Indianapolis During Morning Traffic

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, is the focus of this dataset containing in situ airborne measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) from September 3, 2014. Data was collected during the morning commuter period using a NASA JPL-developed CO2 Laser Absorption Spectrometer (CO2LAS) onboard a DC-8 aircraft as part of the ASCENDS deployment to demonstrate IPDA lidar techniques. The measurements capture the CO2 plume downwind of the urban area, enabling emission rate estimations.

Use Cases

• Validating and calibrating satellite-based carbon dioxide observation algorithms using precise airborne lidar column measurements.
• Modeling urban CO2 emission fluxes by analyzing the measured plume downwind of Indianapolis alongside recorded wind speed and direction.
• Assessing the performance of the Integrated Path Differential-Absorption (IPDA) lidar technique for future global CO2 monitoring missions.
• Studying the contribution of morning commuter traffic and stationary sources to local atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

Strengths

• Data was collected using a specialized NASA JPL instrument (CO2LAS) operating at a 2.05-micron wavelength optimized for boundary layer sensitivity.
• Measurements provide a temporally and spatially specific snapshot of urban emissions during a high-traffic period on a single day (September 3, 2014).
• The dataset's presence on multiple authoritative platforms (NASA Earthdata, Data.gov) signals its importance for atmospheric research.

Limitations

• Key technical details are unknown, including the specific column names, row count, and dataset size.
• Conflicting metadata exists: the last updated date is reported as both 2014-09-03 and 2026-03-13 across different platform entries.
• Data is provided in HDF-5 format, which may require specialized software or libraries for access and analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), likely associated with ORNL_CLOUD.

Collection Method

Airborne measurements taken from a DC-8 aircraft using a continuous-wave heterodyne CO2 Laser Absorption Spectrometer (CO2LAS).

Time Range

2014-09-03

Freshness

2026-03-13 14:44:46.498933

Geography

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.