ATom Campaign Aerosol Particle Composition and Concentration

Single-particle aerosol composition and concentration data were collected during four NASA ATom campaigns from 2016 to 2018. Measurements include particle classification into types such as biomass burning, sea salt, and elemental carbon, along with integrated number, surface area, and volume concentrations across multiple size ranges. The dataset was produced by NASA using the Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) and a modified Laser Aerosol Spectrometer (LAS).

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relative abundance of different aerosol particle types (e.g., biomass burning, sea salt) across global flight campaigns.
• Modeling aerosol mass concentrations and size distributions using integrated LAS number, surface area, and volume data.
• Investigating the vertical and horizontal distribution of specific particle classes like mineral dust or meteoric material in the atmosphere.
• Correlating single-particle composition from PALMS with broader air quality and climate models.

Strengths

• Provides single-particle compositional analysis for nine distinct particle types, enabling source attribution.
• Covers a wide particle diameter measurement range from approximately 100 nm to 5000 nm.
• Combines particle type classification with absolute concentration metrics from two instruments (PALMS and LAS).
• Data originates from four separate NASA airborne campaigns, indicating a multi-year sampling effort.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source platform.
• Conflicting last updated dates exist between sources (2018-05 21 on NASA Earthdata and 2026-03-13 on Data.gov).
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Measured in-flight by the Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) instrument and a modified Laser Aerosol Spectrometer (LAS).

Time Range

2016-2018

Freshness

2026-03-13 08:24:48.654377

Geography

Global, based on the airborne ATom campaign flights.