GPM IPHEx: ER-2 Aircraft Navigation and Meteorological Data

From May 1 to June 14, 2014, twenty-one NASA ER-2 aircraft flights collected this navigation and meteorological dataset over North Carolina. It was gathered during the Integrated Precipitation and Hydrology Experiment (IPHEx) to act as a proxy for validating Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite instruments. The data includes parameters recorded every second of flight and is available in ASCII and XML formats.

Use Cases

• Validating satellite precipitation retrievals based on aircraft instrument proxy data.
• Analyzing flight-level meteorological conditions, including temperature and wind, during the IPHEx campaign.
• Studying aircraft navigation patterns and their correlation with atmospheric measurements.
• Calibrating or testing algorithms for GPM satellite data products using high-resolution in-situ-like observations.

Strengths

• Provides a specific, high-temporal-resolution record with data collected every second of flight.
• Covers a defined campaign period with 21 separate flights, offering repeated observations.
• Serves a clear validation purpose as a direct proxy for GPM satellite instruments.

Limitations

• Key metadata is incomplete: column names and dataset size are unknown across all sources.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' date, with one showing 2014 and another showing a future date of 2026, casting doubt on metadata accuracy.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further details.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by an on-board navigation recorder on the NASA ER-2 aircraft during the IPHEx field campaign.

Time Range

May 1, 2014 through June 14, 2014

Freshness

2026-04-10 02:36:17.335354 (from datagov, but conflicts with earlier date from nasa_earthdata)

Geography

North Carolina, USA