Geography
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The ACT-America project is a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-2 mission designed to study the transport and fluxes of greenhouse gases. The open and freely available ACT-America data sets provide airborne in situ measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide, methane, trace gases, aerosols, clouds, and meteorological properties, airborne remote sensing measurements of aerosol backscatter, atmospheric boundary layer height and columnar content of atmospheric carbon dioxide, tower-based measurements, and modeled atmospheric mole fractions and regional carbon fluxes of greenhouse gases over the Central and Eastern United States. We conducted 121 research flights during five campaigns in four seasons during 2016–2019 over three regions of the US (Mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South) using two NASA research aircraft (B-200 and C-130). We performed three flight patterns (fair weather, frontal crossings, and OCO-2 underflights) and collected more than 1,140 h of airborne measurements via level-leg flights in the atmospheric boundary layer, lower, and upper free troposphere and vertical profiles spanning these altitudes. We also merged various airborne in situ measurements onto a common standard sampling interval, which brings coherence to the data, creates geolocated data products, and makes it much easier for the users to perform holistic analysis of the ACT-America data products. Here, we report on detailed information of data sets collected, the workflow for data sets including storage and processing of the quality controlled and quality assured harmonized observations, and their archival and formatting for users. Finally, we provide some important information on the dissemination of data products including metadata and highlights of applications of ACT-America data sets.
Supporting data is also available as supplementary download.
Publication Title
Earth and Space Science
Publication Date
2021
Volume
8
Issue
7
ISSN
2333-5084
DOI
10.1029/2020EA001634
Keywords
ACT-America, atmospheric CH4, atmospheric CO2, data description, meteorological properties, trace gases
Repository Citation
Wei, Y.; Shrestha, R.; Pal, S.; Gerken, T.; Feng, S.; McNelis, J.; Singh, D.; Thornton, M. M.; Boyer, A. G.; Shook, M. A.; Chen, G.; Baier, B. C.; Barkley, Z. R.; Barrick, J. D.; Bennett, J. R.; Browell, E. V.; Campbell, J. F.; Campbell, L. J.; Choi, Y.; Collins, J.; Dobler, J.; Eckl, M.; Fiehn, A.; Fried, A.; Digangi, J. P.; Barton-Grimley, R.; Halliday, H.; Klausner, T.; Kooi, S.; Kostinek, J.; Lauvaux, T.; Lin, B.; and Williams, Christopher A., "Atmospheric carbon and transport – America (ACT-America) data sets: description, management, and delivery" (2021). Geography. 863.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_geography/863
Atmospheric carbon and transport - Supporting Information
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Copyright
Must link to published article with DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EA001634