TOTE-VOTE: DC-8 Aircraft Raman Lidar Data for Methane and Water Vapor

Nineteen NASA DC-8 flights from December 1995 to February 1996 collected this airborne Raman lidar data to trace filaments of air moving in and out of the Arctic polar vortex. The dataset features methane and water vapor measurements, supporting analysis of stratospheric transport processes from tropical and polar regions to mid-latitudes. It was collected alongside a suite of instruments measuring aerosols, ozone, nitrogen oxides, and temperature.

Use Cases

• Modeling stratospheric transport pathways based on methane and water vapor tracer data.
• Studying the structure and erosion of the Arctic polar vortex using high-resolution airborne lidar profiles.
• Validating satellite retrievals of atmospheric composition with in-situ aircraft measurements.
• Analyzing correlations between aerosol properties and trace gas concentrations from co-located instrument data.

Strengths

• Data originates from a focused NASA campaign with 19 documented research flights, providing a structured observational record.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals importance and facilitates discovery.
• Dataset is described as complete, indicating a finalized collection from the historical campaign.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: column names, row counts, and file sizes are unknown across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (1996 vs. 2026) create uncertainty about metadata maintenance.
• The specific license is only noted as 'other-license-specified' without detailed terms.

Provenance

Source

NASA Langley Research Center Atmospheric Science Data Center (LARC_ASDC)

Collection Method

Remotely sensed data collected via Raman Lidar onboard a NASA DC-8 aircraft during the TOTE-VOTE campaign.

Time Range

December 1995 to February 1996

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:34:16.666499

Geography

Pacific region, focusing on transport from tropical/polar regions to midlatitudes.