DISCOVER-AQ: Ground Site Air Quality Data for Maryland

NASA's DISCOVER-AQ campaign collected surface-level measurements from aircraft and ground sites to validate satellite observations of near-surface pollution. This specific dataset contains ancillary ground site data from the 2011 Baltimore-Washington deployment, a four-year study involving NASA research centers and universities. The data includes measurements from surface air quality monitors, AERONET sun photometers, Pandora spectrometers, and model simulations.

Use Cases

• Validate satellite column observations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde based on surface-level ground measurements.
• Analyze diurnal variability of air pollutants based on the campaign's objective to understand factors controlling daily changes.
• Investigate horizontal scales of pollution variability, such as urban plumes, using targeted airborne and ground-based observations.
• Diagnose ground-level conditions influencing air quality by correlating aircraft spiral profiling data with surface monitor data.

Strengths

• Data collection is explicitly stated as complete for the Maryland deployment.
• Campaign involved two NASA aircraft (P3-B and King Air) conducting in-situ and remote sensing, providing multi-platform validation.
• Incorporates data from an existing network of surface monitors, AERONET photometers, and Pandora spectrometers.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is specific to the 2011 Maryland deployment and does not cover other campaign regions like Houston or Denver.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected at ancillary ground sites during the DISCOVER-AQ field study, involving aircraft spiral profiling, remote sensing, and surface monitoring networks.

Time Range

2011 (Maryland deployment)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:14:08.236864; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Baltimore-Washington, D.C. region, Maryland, USA