OWLETS-2: Ozone and Nitrogen Dioxide Measurements Over Chesapeake Bay

NASA's Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study (OWLETS-2) collected ozone and nitrogen dioxide data from June 6 to July 6, 2018 in the upper Chesapeake Bay region. The campaign used Pandora spectrometers at ground sites and on a research vessel to characterize pollutant gradients across the land-water interface. This dataset addresses a known measurement gap in coastal air quality research.

Use Cases

• Analyzing ozone concentration gradients between land and water based on mobile and ship-based measurements.
• Studying nitrogen dioxide variations in coastal environments using spectrometer data.
• Validating satellite-based atmospheric composition retrievals with ground-truth data from a coordinated field campaign.
• Modeling pollutant transport and chemistry at the land-water interface using synchronous vertical profiles.

Strengths

• Data originates from a NASA Science Innovation Fund-supported field campaign with a defined collection period (June 6 – July 6, 2018).
• Campaign utilized a multi-platform approach including fixed sites, mobile, and ship-based measurements for spatial coverage.
• Dataset is hosted on multiple authoritative platforms (Data.gov, NASA Earthdata), indicating curation and importance.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: specific column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided by any source.
• License is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without details, and author information is unknown.
• Data freshness is unclear; the most recent platform update is listed as 2026, which is a future date and suggests a metadata error.

Provenance

Source

NASA GSFC Pandora Spectrometer Project

Collection Method

Field campaign measurements using Pandora spectrometers at ground sites and onboard the SERC research vessel.

Time Range

June 6, 2018 – July 6, 2018 (OWLETS-2). Descriptions also reference a prior OWLETS campaign from July 5, 2017 – August 3, 2017.

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:36:00.871209 (Note: This is a future date, indicating a potential metadata error. The dataset itself is from a 2018 campaign.)

Geography

Upper Chesapeake Bay region, including sites at UMBC, Hart Miller Island (HMI), and Howard University Beltsville (HUBV).