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ACT-America: L3 Integrated Measurements and 2019 Data

Submitted by ORNL DAAC Staff on
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Map of ACT-America 2019 Flight Paths
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ACT-America 2019 summer airborne campaign showing the flight paths for the two aircrafts and location of ground towers. Flights were concentrated on three study domains: northeast, south-central, and midwest regions of the United States.

ACT-America: L3 Merged In Situ Atmospheric Trace Gases and Flask Data, Eastern USA

A new version of Level 3 merged in situ atmospheric trace gases and flask data from the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America (ACT-America) project is available. This version includes updated data files for the first 4 campaigns (Summer 2016, Winter 2017, Fall 2017, Spring 2018, and Summer 2019) and new data files for the 2019 summer campaign.

These merged data products provide integrated measurements at intervals useful to the modeling community for studying the transport and fluxes of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane across North America. Data were collected using two aircraft platforms, the NASA Langley Beechcraft B200 King Air and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's C-130H Hercules, across a variety of continental surfaces and atmospheric conditions. The merged data products are composed of continuous in situ measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), ozone (O3), and ethane (C2H6, B200 aircraft only) that were averaged to uniform intervals and merged with aircraft navigation and meteorological variables as well as trace gas concentrations from discrete flask samples collected with the Programmable Flask Package (PFP).

The ACT-America project is a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-2 mission to study the transport and fluxes of atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane across three regions in the eastern United States. Flight campaigns measured transport of greenhouse gases by continental-scale weather systems. Ground-based measurements of greenhouse gases were also collected. Project goals include better estimates of greenhouse gas sources and sinks which are required for climate management and for prediction of future climate. See all ORNL DAAC data from ACT-America.

Data Citation: Davis, K.J., M.D. Obland, B. Lin, T. Lauvaux, C. O'Dell, B. Meadows, E.V. Browell, J.P. DiGangi, C. Sweeney, M.J. McGill, J.D. Barrick, A.R. Nehrir, M.M. Yang, J.R. Bennett, B.C. Baier, A. Roiger, S. Pal, T. Gerken, A. Fried, S. Feng, R. Shrestha, M.A. Shook, G. Chen, L.J. Campbell, Z.R. Barkley, and R.M. Pauly. 2018. ACT-America: L3 Merged In Situ Atmospheric Trace Gases and Flask Data, Eastern USA. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1593