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Full catalog/ATom_merge_1581
ATom_merge_1581·v1.5·dataset

Aircraft measurements of trace gases and tiny airborne particles

ATom: Merged Atmospheric Chemistry, Trace Gases, and Aerosols
atmosphere NASA ORNL_CLOUD Level 3 netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Aircraft measurements of greenhouse gases and pollution sampled through the depth of the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, and black-carbon soot particles, merged from many instruments into matched time intervals.

How it's made. Collected aboard NASA's DC-8 aircraft during the ATom mission, which flew pole-to-pole over the Pacific and Atlantic across four seasons from 2016 to 2018, profiling from near the surface up to about 12 km.

How & where you'd use it. Designed to improve how global climate and air-chemistry models represent reactive gases and short-lived climate-warming particles.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC CARBON MONOXIDEATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › CARBONACEOUS AEROSOLSATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITYATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › TRACE GASES/TRACE SPECIESATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › NON-METHANE HYDROCARBONS/VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUNDSHUMAN DIMENSIONS › ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS › INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONSHUMAN DIMENSIONS › ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS › FOSSIL FUEL BURNINGHUMAN DIMENSIONS › ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS › BIOMASS BURNINGATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › SULFUR COMPOUNDSATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › HALOCARBONS AND HALOGENSATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › OXYGEN COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC OZONE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2016-07-29 → 2018-05-21
  • Measured byNASA DC-8 (PALMS, WAS, LASER SPECTROMETER, SPECTROMETERS, CIMS, PHOTOMETERS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusSUPERSEDED

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

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.

Get the data

atom_merge_1581_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ATom_merge_1581",
    version="1.5",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from ORNL_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.