DISCOVER-AQ: California Aircraft Lidar Data for Air Quality

DISCOVERAQ_California_AircraftRemoteSensing_B200_HSRL_Data contains remotely sensed data collected by the High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL-2) onboard NASA's B-200 aircraft during the California (San Joaquin Valley) deployment of NASA's DISCOVER-AQ field study. The data product contains data for only the Maryland deployment and data collection is complete. Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality (DISCOVER-AQ) was a four-year campaign conducted by NASA Langley Research Center, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA Ames Research Center, and multiple universities.

Use Cases

• Validate satellite observations of near-surface pollution based on aircraft lidar measurements.
• Analyze vertical profiles of aerosol properties based on HSRL-2 remote sensing.
• Investigate correlations between surface air quality and atmospheric column observations for ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde.
• Study diurnal variability of pollutants using surface-level and aircraft measurements.
• Map horizontal scales of variability, such as urban plumes and pollution gradients, in the San Joaquin Valley.

Strengths

• Data collected by NASA's High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL-2) instrument.
• Part of the multi-year, multi-region DISCOVER-AQ campaign involving NASA aircraft and ground stations.
• Targeted regions were in violation of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• 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

Remotely sensed data collected by the HSRL-2 lidar onboard NASA's B-200 aircraft.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:15:22.892305; freshness should be verified.

Geography

San Joaquin Valley, California, USA.