NASA ATom Project: Airborne Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Model Output, 2006–2018

NASA's ATom project provides in-situ atmospheric observations from eleven airborne campaigns conducted between 2006 and 2018. The data includes measurements from instruments like spectrometers and mass samplers, covering pollutants, aerosols, and photolysis frequencies over remote oceans and continental regions. It is paired with output from nine chemical transport models to compare predictions with real-world measurements.

Use Cases

• Validate and improve chemical transport model predictions of sulfate and nitrate based on in-situ airborne observations.
• Analyze aerosol pH and ammonium balance across pollution gradients from continents to remote oceans.
• Study the impact of solar radiation on atmospheric chemistry using calculated photolysis frequencies and actinic flux data.
• Investigate aerosol optical properties, such as extinction and absorption, in wildfire plumes and remote atmospheres.

Strengths

• Integrates observational data from eleven distinct airborne campaigns spanning over a decade (2006–2018).
• Includes output from nine widely used chemical transport models for direct comparison.
• Covers a wide geographic range, including remote oceans, the Arctic, and multiple continents.
• Measurements come from specialized instruments like mass spectrometers, cavity ringdown spectrometers, and whole air samplers.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.

Provenance

Source

NASA airborne campaigns and associated modeling groups.

Collection Method

In-situ measurements collected from aircraft using instruments like mass spectrometers and spectroradiometers, combined with model simulations.

Time Range

2006 to 2018

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Conterminous U.S., Alaska, Mexico, Canada, Greenland, South Korea, and remote areas over the Arctic, Pacific, Southern, and Atlantic Oceans.