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Full catalog/PACE-PAX_AircraftRemoteSensing_ER2_AirHARP2-MAP_Data
PACE-PAX_AircraftRemoteSensing_ER2_AirHARP2-MAP_Data·v1·dataset

Aircraft measurements of light bouncing off clouds and haze

PACE-PAX ER-2 Airborne Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter - 2 (AirHARP2) Data
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 2 NetCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Measurements of how light bounces off and is polarized by clouds, haze, and the ocean, captured from many viewing angles by an aircraft instrument.

How it's made. Collected by the AirHARP2 polarimeter flown aboard NASA's high-altitude ER-2 aircraft during the 2024 PACE-PAX field campaign over California and nearby coasts.

How & where you'd use it. Used to check and improve the accuracy of data products from NASA's PACE satellite by comparing them against these airborne measurements.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › SPECTRAL IRRADIANCEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › SCATTERING

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2024-09-04 → 2024-10-01
  • Measured byNASA ER-2 (AirHARP)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-135, -45, 135, 58.11
  • FormatsNetCDF-4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

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

PACE-PAX_AircraftRemoteSensing_ER2_AirHARP2-MAP_Data is the Airborne Hyper-Angular Rainbow Polarimeter - 2 (AirHARP2) data collected onboard the ER-2 aircraft during the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem Postlaunch Airborne eXperiment (PACE-PAX) campaign. Data collection for this product is complete. The PACE-PAX campaign was conducted in September 2024 to gather data for the validation and refinement of data products generated by the PACE satellite mission. PACE-PAX obtained measurements over Southern and Central California and nearby coastal regions. Scheduled for roughly 9 months after the launch of PACE, sixty flight hours were planned for each of the two aircraft, NASA’s ER-2 high-altitude aircraft, and the CIRPAS Twin Otter aircraft (in situ sampling). Based out of their respective home airports (NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center for the ER-2 and Marina Municipal Airport for the Twin Otter), flights were coordinated between the two aircraft, PACE satellite overpasses, and ground and ocean-based observations. With a robust suite of in situ and remote sensing instruments, and ground-based observations, PACE-PAX validated and refined PACE data products and identified any potential errors or biases in the measurements, which is essential for ensuring the accuracy and reliability of the PACE data products and maximizing the scientific value of the mission. The following were validation objectives for PACE-PAX: Validate new retrieval parameters; Assess spatial and temporal scale impact on validation; Validate within the instrument swath of all PACE instruments; Validate radiometric and polarimetric properties; Target specific geometries, season, and time of day; and focus on specific processes or phenomena (e.g., high-aerosol loads over land and ocean, multiple aerosol layers).

Get the data

pace-pax_aircraftremotesensing_er2_airharp2-map_data_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="PACE-PAX_AircraftRemoteSensing_ER2_AirHARP2-MAP_Data",
    version="1",
    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 LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.