Solar radiation enters the Earth's atmosphere with a portion being scattered by clouds and aerosols.

Processing, archiving and distributing Earth science data
at the NASA Langley Research Center

CALIPSO Shows Smoke from Australian Fires

CALIPSO Shows Smoke from Australian Fires on Jan.1, 2020
NASA satellites have observed an extraordinary amount of smoke injected into the atmosphere from the Australian fires and its subsequent eastward dispersal. Observations from NASA’s Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite shows smoke plumes reaching 11 miles (17.7 km) vertically into the lower stratosphere from some energetic firestorms. These storms are fueled by both heat from the fires and water vapor in the atmosphere, which allow them to grow into thunderstorms. 
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MISR and CALIPSO Observe Hurricane Dorian
On August 24, 2019, a tropical wave - a region of low air pressure - developed into a tropical depression about 800 miles southeast of Barbados in the Atlantic Ocean. A region of higher air pressure around the depression steered it westward, where it began to turn into a small cyclone near the Antilles and was reclassified as a tropical storm named Dorian. Dorian quickly intensified to a category 5 hurricane, and made landfall in the Bahamas shortly afterwards on September 1, 2019.
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CALIPSO Total Attenuated Backscatter

The CALIPSO lidar level 1.5 data product contains profiles of attenuated backscatter and aerosol extinction coefficients for which clouds, overcast, surface, subsurface, and totally attenuated samples have been removed before being averaged to a 20 km horizontal resolution. The new V1.00 standard level 1.5 product is based entirely on version 4 CALIOP data, thus providing accurately calibrated attenuated backscatter coefficients and the benefits of the most sophisticated CALIOP scene classification algorithms.
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NASA Instruments Image Fireball over Bering Sea

NASA Instruments Image Fireball over Bering Sea

On Dec. 18, 2018, a large "fireball" - the term used for exceptionally bright meteors that are visible over a wide area - exploded about 16 miles (26 kilometers) above the Bering Sea. The explosion unleashed an estimated 173 kilotons of energy, or more than 10 times the energy of the atomic bomb blast over Hiroshima during World War II. It was the most powerful meteor to be observed since 2013; however, given its altitude and the remote area over which it occurred, the object posed no threat to anyone on the ground.
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SAGE III-ISS Occultation Event

SAGE III-ISS Occultation Event

This moonset image is illustrating an occultation event from the SAGE III instrument, which is used to measure Ozone, NO2 and NO3 concentrations in the upper atmosphere. Nitrogen Trioxide (NO3) virtually disappears from the atmosphere when the sun rises, but SAGE III/ISS utilizes lunar occultation to measure its concentration. Version 5.1 is the first official release of SAGE III/SS data that includes provisional products suitable for use in both validation and research studies and some new beta data products.
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MOPITT Imagery for California Fires
The Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument is flying on board NASA's Terra satellite. It observes CO in the troposphere through thermal and near infrared channels.The imagery clearly shows enhanced levels of CO associated with the Camp and Woolsey wildfires in northern and southern California, respectively. The high CO west of Mexico may be an aged part of the Woolsey/Camp plumes, based on the location of high CO the day before and on the smoke trajectories shown by the MODIS visible images.
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DAAC Updates

RSS Feeds - daac updates, announcements, maintenance.

Earthdata Forum Virtual Launch

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

You are invited to the official launch of the new Earthdata User Forum on Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 11AM for a demonstration.

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MOPITT V7 Product Discontinuance

Monday, December 30, 2019

With the recent release of the MOPITT Version 8 Level 2 and Level 3 products, the MOPITT team expects to discontinue production of Version 7 products after their annual calibration event in March 2020.

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CALIPSO LIDAR L3 GEWEX Cloud Standard Product Release

Thursday, December 5, 2019

The Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) at NASA Langley Research Center in collaboration with the CALIPSO mission team announces the release of a new CALIPSO lidar level 3 (L3) Global Energy and Water cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Cloud product.

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NEW Earthdata Forum Enters Testing Phase

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

The Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) in cooperation with ESDIS has created a new ESDIS Cross-DAAC Forum for Earth Science knowledge discovery and distribution.

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