BOREAS AFM-02: 1994 Aircraft Sounding Atmospheric Profiles

BOREAS (Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study) data from 1994 includes vertical atmospheric soundings collected by the University of Wyoming King Air aircraft over the boreal forest region. The dataset contains pass-by-pass measurements of wind components, temperature, dewpoint, water vapor mixing ratio, CO2 concentration, and aircraft position and attitude. These soundings were taken during three Intensive Field Campaigns (IFCs) to characterize atmospheric properties from near the surface to above the inversion layer.

Use Cases

• Validating land surface and atmospheric boundary layer models based on vertical profiles of temperature, humidity, and wind.
• Analyzing carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration gradients and fluxes in the boreal forest atmosphere.
• Studying the structure of the planetary boundary layer and inversion layers using aircraft altitude and attitude data.
• Investigating relationships between atmospheric water vapor mixing ratio and dewpoint temperature from sounding data.

Strengths

• Data was collected during three dedicated Intensive Field Campaigns (IFCs) in 1994, providing focused temporal coverage.
• Includes a specific set of atmospheric parameters (wind, temperature, dewpoint, CO2) measured during vertical soundings, offering detailed vertical profiles.
• Cross-platform presence on data.gov and NASA EarthData suggests established provenance and importance for the research community.

Limitations

• Critical metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unknown across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (1994 vs. 2026) create uncertainty about the currency of the metadata record versus the data itself.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further details, potentially restricting clear reuse.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), BOREAS AFM-02 team.

Collection Method

Aircraft-based measurements using the University of Wyoming King Air during vertical soundings.

Time Range

1994 (specifically during IFCs 1, 2, and 3).

Freshness

Last updated metadata on data.gov is 2026-03-13, but the underlying data collection ended in 1994-09-17.

Geography

Boreal forest region (presumably Canada, as part of the BOREAS project).