ORACLES Airborne Remote Sensing Data for Aerosol-Cloud Interactions

ORACLES_AerosolCloud_AircraftRemoteSensing_Data provides multi-year airborne observations of aerosol and cloud properties over the southeast Atlantic, a region critical for understanding climate forcing. The dataset was collected onboard P-3 Orion and ER-2 aircraft during three intensive field campaigns from 2016 to 2018. It was produced by the NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (LARC_ASDC) to study the impact of biomass burning aerosols from Southern Africa.

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical profiles of aerosol and cloud layers to understand their separation and radiative heating effects.
• Validating and improving climate models by comparing observed aerosol distributions in the southeast Atlantic against model outputs.
• Studying the seasonal and interannual variability of biomass burning aerosol properties from Southern Africa.
• Investigating in-situ meteorological conditions (e.g., air temperature, humidity, wind components) concurrent with remote sensing observations.

Strengths

• Data covers three distinct field campaigns over multiple years (2016, 2017, 2018), capturing seasonal variability.
• Provides observations over the complete vertical column, crucial for studying layered aerosol-cloud systems.
• Combines remote sensing and in-situ measurements from two specialized aircraft platforms (P-3 Orion and ER-2).
• Targets a scientifically critical region where climate models show large disagreements in aerosol forcing assessments.

Limitations

• Exact row counts, file sizes, and a complete list of measurement columns are not provided across the sources.
• Sources conflict on the last updated date, with one listing 2026-03-12 and another 2019-03-23.

Provenance

Source

NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (LARC_ASDC)

Collection Method

Remotely sensed and in-situ measurements collected onboard P-3 Orion and ER-2 aircraft during dedicated field campaigns.

Time Range

August 19, 2016 – October 27, 2018

Freshness

2026-03-12 22:54:19.790621

Geography

Southeast Atlantic Ocean, focusing on the region influenced by biomass burning aerosols from Southern Africa.