Airborne Hyperspectral Methane Imagery for California COMEX Campaign

NASA's dataset contains calibrated longwave-infrared spectral imagery collected during the NASA/ESA COMEX campaign from July 22-25, 2014. It provides Level 1-3 data products, including at-sensor radiance, surface brightness temperature, and adaptive coherence estimator (ACE) detection imagery for methane and auxiliary gases over methane-generating sites in California. The data covers specific study areas including the Coal Oil Point marine seep field, the Kern River oil field complex, and stockyards in Chino.

Use Cases

• Quantifying methane point-source emissions from oil and gas infrastructure using ACE detection imagery.
• Analyzing surface brightness temperature variations across different land cover types (e.g., stockyards vs. marine seeps).
• Validating satellite-based methane detection algorithms with high-resolution (1-2m GSD) airborne hyperspectral data.
• Studying the correlation between industrial activity locations (from auxiliary data) and atmospheric gas concentrations.

Strengths

• Provides high-resolution geospatial data with ground sampling distances of 1-meter and 2-meter.
• Includes multi-level processed data (L1 raw cubes, L2 radiance, L3 temperature and gas detections) for analysis flexibility.
• Covers three distinct methane source types (marine seep, oil field, agriculture) within a focused four-day campaign.

Limitations

• Conflicting last updated dates exist between sources (2014-07-25 vs. 2026-03-13), casting doubt on data currency.
• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all platforms.
• Temporal coverage is limited to a short, four-day collection period in July 2014.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected with the Aerospace Corporation's Mako airborne longwave-IR hyperspectral imager during flight campaigns.

Time Range

2014-07-22 to 2014-07-25

Freshness

2026-03-13 00:55:00.614773

Geography

Southern and central California, U.S., including Coal Oil Point (Goleta), Kern River oil field (Bakersfield), and stockyards (Chino).