Generating Aerosol Data Products from Airborne in-situ Observations made during 2011 DISCOVER-AQ Field Campaign

In July 2011, the first of four DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality) planned field campaigns was completed. The investigation is a broad collaboration between federal and state agencies and academic institutions with the primary goal of improving the interpretation of satellite observations of surface-level trace gas and aerosol parameters by making detailed correlative measurements from aircraft and ground-based instruments in urban regions plagued by air-quality issues. Phase I studied the air-quality of the lower troposphere in and around the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas along the I-95 corridor. In-situ airborne data is essential in providing a link between the broad swath satellite measurements and the measurements made by ground based sensors. This is accomplished by examining the relationship between column-integrated values obtained through in-situ sampling and surface measured values, as aircraft can fully characterize atmospheric chemical/aerosol constituents at a given time and location. To that end, the NASA P-3B was instrumented to record fast-response measurements of various gas-phase tracers and aerosol characteristics of pollution. A flight pattern was created and executed for each of the 14 research flights that had the P-3B performing a series of spiral ascents/descents over six ground sites to perform detailed vertical characterizations of the chemical and aerosol structure. The in-situ aerosol characterization was performed by the NASA Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment (LARGE) using 15 instruments to measure aerosol microphysical, chemical and optical properties. In this presentation we discuss the process in which aerosol science data is generated, from the collection of more than 10 GB of data per 8 hour flight, to the initial QA/QC required to produce a preliminary data product within 24 hours of landing, through final data submission to the data archive within 4 months of the end of the field campaign, including post mission calibration and QA/QC. The final data products are estimated to generate about 500 GB total for the deployment and will encompass no less than 10 different archive files per flight at 1s resolution. Examples will be shown such as the correction of nephelometer data for truncation errors and absorption data from filter based instruments due to scattering on the filter media. Interpretative data products are also generated to aid the interpretation and synthesis of the aerosol data with gas-phase in-situ and coincident satellite retrievals, including column integrated dry and ambient aerosol optical depths. Sample data products will also be presented.