GroundMSPI ACEPOL Radiance: Polarimetric Imagery of Clouds and Aerosols

October-November 2017 radiance and polarimetric data acquired during the ACEPOL flight campaign. The dataset contains radiometric and polarimetric images of clouds, aerosols, and Earth's surface at 8 wavelengths (355, 380, 445, 470, 555, 660, 865, and 935 nm). It was produced by NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center to support instrument assessment for aerosol and cloud science.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite polarimeters based on ground-based radiance and Stokes parameter data
• Analyzing aerosol optical properties based on degree of linear polarization (DOLP) measurements
• Studying cloud reflectance across multiple wavelengths from 355 nm to 935 nm
• Validating airborne instrument data using synchronized ground observations from specific flight dates

Strengths

• Includes polarimetric data (Stokes Q/U, DOLP, AOLP) at three specific wavelengths (470, 660, and 865 nm)
• Contains data from 8 distinct spectral bands ranging from ultraviolet (355 nm) to near-infrared (935 nm)
• Provides synchronized ground support data for the ACEPOL airborne campaign on two specific dates (October 25 and November 7, 2017)

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data is distributed in HDF-EOS-5 format, which requires specialized libraries for processing

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Ground-based Multi-angle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (GroundMSPI) measurements acquired during the ACEPOL flight campaign.

Time Range

October 25 and November 7, 2017

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:43:01.269330; freshness should be verified

Geography

Palmdale, CA (Armstrong Flight Research Center) and surrounding areas targeted by the ACEPOL campaign.