ORACLES: Aircraft In-Situ Aerosol Measurements Over the Southeast Atlantic

ORACLES_Aerosol_AircraftInSitu_Data contains in-situ aerosol measurements from P-3 Orion and ER-2 aircraft flights during three intensive observation periods from 2016 to 2018. The dataset provides multi-year airborne observations of the complete vertical column to study key parameters driving aerosol-cloud interactions. It focuses on biomass burning aerosols from Southern Africa, which produces nearly one-third of Earth's biomass burning aerosol particles, in a region with large inter-model differences in climate forcing assessments.

Use Cases

• Modeling aerosol radiative forcing based on vertical column measurements of aerosol properties.
• Studying aerosol-cloud interaction processes using in-situ data collected above and within cloud layers.
• Analyzing the climate impact of African biomass burning aerosols using multi-year, geolocated flight data.
• Validating satellite remote sensing retrievals with coincident, high-resolution in-situ aircraft measurements.

Strengths

• Provides data from three distinct field campaigns spanning August 2016 to October 2018, enabling multi-year analysis.
• Covers the complete vertical column over the southeast Atlantic, a key region for biomass burning aerosol studies.
• Combines in-situ measurements from a low-flying P-3 Orion platform with ER-2 remote sensing data from the 2016 campaign.

Limitations

• Column names and specific measured parameters are not listed in the provided metadata, limiting precise understanding of data structure.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates exist between platforms (2018-10-28 on nasa_earthdata vs. 2026-04-09 on datagov).
• Dataset size, row count, and detailed license terms are unspecified across all sources.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

In-situ measurements collected onboard P-3 Orion and ER-2 aircraft during the ORACLES campaign.

Time Range

August 19, 2016 – October 27, 2018

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:25:10.191061

Geography

Southeast Atlantic region, focusing on areas influenced by Southern African biomass burning.