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ATom: Merged Atmospheric Chemistry, Trace Gases, and Aerosols

Metadata Updated: July 4, 2025

This dataset provides information on greenhouse gases and human-produced air pollution, including atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), tropospheric ozone (O3), and black carbon (BC) aerosols, collected during airborne campaigns conducted by NASA's Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission. This dataset includes merged data from all instruments plus additional data such as numbered profiles and distance flown. Merged data have been created for seven different sampling intervals. In the case of data obtained over longer time intervals (e.g. flask data), the merge files provide (weighted) averages to match the sampling intervals. ATom deploys an extensive gas and aerosol payload on the NASA DC-8 aircraft for a systematic, global-scale sampling of the atmosphere, profiling continuously from 0.2 to 12 km altitude. Flights occurred in each of 4 seasons from 2016 to 2018. Flights originate from the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, fly north to the western Arctic, south to the South Pacific, east to the Atlantic, north to Greenland, and return to California across central North America. ATom establishes a single, contiguous, global-scale dataset. This comprehensive dataset will be used to improve the representation of chemically reactive gases and short-lived climate forcers in global models of atmospheric chemistry and climate. Profiles of the reactive gases will also provide critical information for the validation of satellite data, particularly in remote areas where in situ data is lacking. Complete aircraft flight information including, but not limited to, latitude, longitude, and altitude are also provided. This data release provides results from all instruments on all four ATom flight campaigns.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 4, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date July 4, 2025
Publisher ORNL_DAAC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1581
Data Last Modified 2025-07-02
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 8294bc29-d651-4701-a8db-83286d1c3be6
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Old Spatial {"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180.0,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90.0,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180.0,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90.0},"CARTESIAN"
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 60a761f0f1016ce2a2c6b2363c3c9b18efff3ff45ecc4d16127b76884a3e7013
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial

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