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Atmospheric Comprehensive Aerosol Properties, 2016-2018

Submitted by ORNL DAAC Staff on 2021-11-14
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Aerosol extinction across ATom campaigns.
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Caption

Aerosol extinction across ATom campaigns. Sea salt is shown in (g) and (h), dust in (i) and (j), and water in (k) and (l). Source: Brock et al., 2021

The ORNL DAAC recently released the following Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) dataset by Brock, C.A., et al. (2021):

ATom: Comprehensive Aerosol Properties, 2016-2018

This dataset contains comprehensive measurements of atmospheric aerosol microphysical, chemical, and optical properties derived for both dry and ambient conditions from in situ measurements made during the four ATom campaigns. The dataset includes composition-resolved size distributions the integrated mass of sulfate, organics, nitrate, sea salt, dust, black carbon, and other compounds in coarse and fine fractions; extinction and absorption coefficients from each species at both dry and ambient conditions; asymmetry parameters; Angstrom exponents; and fitted lognormal functions to describe the size distribution. Optical parameters are calculated for 10 wavelengths from the near UV to the near IR, and size distributions range from 3 nm to 50 um in diameter.  The concentration of cloud condensation nuclei is calculated for 5 supersaturations

The Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) is a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-2 mission to study the impact of human-produced air pollution on greenhouse gases and on chemically reactive gases in the atmosphere. ATom deployed an extensive gas and aerosol payload on the NASA DC-8 aircraft for systematic, global-scale sampling of the atmosphere, profiling continuously from 0.2 to 12 km altitude. Around-the-world flights were conducted in each of four seasons between 2016 and 2018.

Additional data from ATom and other relevant links can be found on the ORNL DAAC's ATom Project Page.

Citation: Brock, C.A., K.D. Froyd, M. Dollner, C.J. Williamson, G.P. Schill, D.M. Murphy, N.L. Wagner, A. Kupc, J.L. Jimenez, P. Campuzano-Jost, B.A. Nault, J.C. Schroder, D.A. Day, D.J. Price, B.B. Weinzierl, J.P. Schwarz, J.M. Katich, S. Wang, L.H. Zeng, R. Weber, J.E. Dibb, E. Scheuer, G.S. Diskin, J.P. DiGangi, T.P. Bui, J.M. Dean-Day, C.R. Thompson, J. Peischl, T.B. Ryerson, I. Bourgeois, B.C. Daube, R. Commane, and S.C. Wofsy. 2021. ATom: Comprehensive Aerosol Properties, 2016-2018. ORNL DAAC, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1908

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