DISCOVER-AQ: Airborne Remote Sensing Data for Maryland Air Quality

NASA's DISCOVER-AQ was a four-year campaign involving multiple NASA centers and universities to improve satellite monitoring of air quality. This dataset contains remotely sensed atmospheric column data from the Airborne Compact Atmospheric Mapper (ACAM) instrument onboard a UC-12 aircraft, specifically for the Maryland deployment. The data collection is complete and was used to validate satellite observations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde near the surface.

Use Cases

• Validate satellite column observations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and formaldehyde based on surface and aircraft measurements described in the campaign.
• Study diurnal variability of atmospheric pollutants using the surface-level and vertically resolved measurements mentioned.
• Analyze horizontal scales of variability, such as urban plumes and pollution gradients, using the targeted airborne observations.
• Diagnose ground-level air quality conditions by integrating aircraft remote sensing data with surface monitoring network data as described.

Strengths

• Data collection is complete for the Maryland deployment, as explicitly stated.
• Part of a major four-year NASA campaign involving multiple aircraft and ground-based platforms.
• Designed to address specific objectives for validating and improving satellite air quality monitoring.

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 Maryland deployment; coverage for other campaign regions is in separate datasets.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Remotely sensed data collected by the Airborne Compact Atmospheric Mapper (ACAM) onboard NASA's UC-12 aircraft.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 03:13:28.830073; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Maryland, specifically the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. region, as part of the 2011 deployment.