NASA ASCENDS Airborne Project: CO2 Measurements over California and Indiana

NASA's ASCENDS Airborne Project provides in situ airborne measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The dataset includes measurements from flights over California and Nevada in February 2016 and over Indianapolis, Indiana in September 2014, taken onboard a DC-8 aircraft. Data were collected using the AVOCET instrument and the JPL CO2LAS to validate LiDAR sensor performance.

Use Cases

• Validate LiDAR-based CO2 measurement algorithms based on in situ airborne instrument comparisons.
• Estimate urban emission rates based on observed CO2 plumes and wind data.
• Analyze spatial and temporal variations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations based on geolocated flight data.
• Assess the performance of the Integrated Path Differential-Absorption (IPDA) lidar technique for future space-based missions.

Strengths

• Includes data from two distinct deployments with specific dates and locations: February 10-11, 2016 over California/Nevada and September 3, 2014 over Indianapolis.
• Provides measurements from two specialized NASA instruments: the AVOCET and the JPL CO2 Laser Absorption Spectrometer.
• Data are provided in multiple standard formats, including ICARTT, CSV, and HDF-5.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and total dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NASA's Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days and Seasons (ASCENDS) airborne deployment.

Collection Method

In situ airborne measurements taken onboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft using the AVOCET and CO2LAS instruments.

Time Range

September 3, 2014 and February 10-11, 2016.

Freshness

Data collection occurred in 2014 and 2016; update frequency is unknown.

Geography

Indianapolis, Indiana, USA and California and Nevada, USA.