ACT-America: L1 DAOD Measurements by Airborne CO2 Lidar, Eastern USA

This dataset provides Level 1 (L1) remotely sensed differential absorption optical depth (DAOD) measurements made through the Multi-Functional Fiber Laser Lidar (MFLL; Harris Corporation) during airborne campaigns in Summer 2016, Winter 2017, Fall 2017, and Spring 2018 conducted over central and eastern regions of the United States for the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport (ACT-America) project. DAOD were measured at 0.1 second frequency during flights of the C-130 Hercules aircraft at altitudes up to 8 km with MFLL. The MFLL is a set of Continuous-Wave (CW) lidar instruments consisting of an intensity modulated multi-frequency single-beam synchronous-detection Laser Absorption Spectrometer (LAS) operating at 1571 nm for measuring the column amount of CO2 number density and range between the aircraft and the surface or to cloud tops, and surface reflectance and a Pseudo-random Noise (PN) altimeter at 1596 nm for measuring the path length from the aircraft to the scattering surface and/or cloud tops. The MFLL was onboard all ACT-America seasonal campaigns, except Summer 2019. Complete aircraft flight information, interpolated to the 0.1 second column CO2 reporting frequency, are included, but not limited to, latitude, longitude, altitude, and attitude. Data users should note that a Level 2 (L2) MFLL data product is available (related dataset) that contains all data variables (plus the column-average CO2) included in this L1 MFLL data product but has undergone additional processing and calibrations and is recommended for most use cases.