ATom-4: Aerosol Extinction and Absorption Measurements from NASA DC-8, 2018

NASA's ATom-4 campaign dataset contains one-second aerosol extinction and absorption measurements from the Spectrometers for Optical Aerosol Properties (SOAP) instrument aboard a DC-8 aircraft in 2018. Aerosol extinction is measured at 532 nm by cavity ringdown spectroscopy, and absorption is measured by photoacoustic spectroscopy. These measurements quantify aerosol-radiation interactions, a major component of Earth's radiation budget affecting climate.

Use Cases

• Modeling aerosol radiative forcing based on extinction and absorption measurements at 532 nm.
• Analyzing climate impacts of wildfire smoke plumes based on absorption data valid for strongly absorbing cases.
• Studying atmospheric heating and cooling effects based on the relative contributions of aerosol scattering and absorption.
• Investigating rates of photochemical reactions based on aerosol-induced alterations to air temperature and light extinction.

Strengths

• Data originates from NASA's ATom-4 airborne campaign, an authoritative source for atmospheric science.
• Extinction measurements are described as having sufficient precision and accuracy for the remote atmosphere.
• Instrumentation is specified as using cavity ringdown and photoacoustic spectroscopy for extinction and absorption.

Limitations

• Absorption measurements are described as valid only in strongly absorbing cases, such as dilute wildfire smoke plumes.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Measurements from the SOAP instrument aboard the NASA DC-8 aircraft during the ATom-4 campaign.

Time Range

2018

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 14:06:52.145914; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, based on the airborne ATom campaign flight paths.