ACEPOL Level 2
Entry Title: ACEPOL Airborne Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration (AirSPEX) Remotely Sensed Data Version 1

Entry ID: ACEPOL_AircraftRemoteSensing_AirSPEX_Data_1
Aerosols Clouds
Description

ACEPOL_AircraftRemoteSensing_AirSPEX_Data are remotely sensed measurements collected by the Airborne Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration (SPEX Airborne) onboard the ER-2 during the Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar (ACEPOL) campaign. In order to improve our understanding of the effect of aerosols on climate and air quality, measurements of aerosol chemical composition, size distribution, height profile, and optical properties are of crucial importance. In terms of remotely sensed instrumentation, the most extensive set of aerosol properties can be obtained by combining passive multi-angle, multi-spectral measurements of intensity and polarization with active measurements performed by a High Spectral Resolution Lidar. During Fall 2017, the Aerosol Characterization from Polarimeter and Lidar (ACEPOL) campaign, jointly sponsored by NASA and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON), performed aerosol and cloud measurements over the United States from the NASA high altitude ER-2 aircraft. Six instruments were deployed on the aircraft. Four of these instruments were multi-angle polarimeters: the Airborne Hyper Angular Rainbow Polarimeter (AirHARP), the Airborne Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (AirMSPI), the Airborne Spectrometer for Planetary Exploration (SPEX Airborne) and the Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP). The other two instruments were lidars: the High Spectral Resolution Lidar 2 (HSRL-2) and the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL). The ACEPOL operation was based at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale California, which enabled observations of a wide variety of scene types, including urban, desert, forest, coastal ocean and agricultural areas, with clear, cloudy, polluted and pristine atmospheric conditions. The primary goal of ACEPOL was to assess the capabilities of the different polarimeters for retrieval of aerosol and cloud microphysical and optical parameters, as well as their capabilities to derive aerosol layer height (near-UV polarimetry, O2 A-band). ACEPOL also focused on the development and evaluation of aerosol retrieval algorithms that combine data from both active (lidar) and passive (polarimeter) instruments. ACEPOL data are appropriate for algorithm development and testing, instrument intercomparison, and investigations of active and passive instrument data fusion, which make them valuable resources for remote sensing communities as they prepare for the next generation of spaceborne MAP and lidar missions.

DOI

10.5067/SUBORBITAL/ACEPOL2017/AircraftRemoteSensing_AirSPEX_Data_1

Citation Styles for this Dataset
Keywords

From GCMD Science Keywords:
  • AEROSOLS
  • CLOUDS
  • AEROSOL BACKSCATTER
  • AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS
Data Distribution

File Format(s):

HDF5

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Spatial Information

spatial-coverage-map
Spatial Coverage: (S: 25, N: 45), (W: -130, E: -100)
Spatial Coverage Type: Horizontal Vertical
Coordinate System: Cartesian
Granule Spatial Representation: Cartesian
Locations

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA STRATOSPHERE TROPOSPHERE CALIFORNIA EASTERN PACIFIC OCEAN
Temporal Information

Temporal Coverage: 2017-10-19 - 2017-11-09
Platforms

Jet
NASA ER-2
NASA Earth Resources-2
SPEX Airborne
Spectro-Polarimeter for Exploration Airborne
Metadata Dates

Created on 2020-04-03
Last updated on 2024-02-29