ACT-America: L1 Raw, Uncalibrated In-Situ CO2, CO, and CH4 Mole Fractions from Towers

This dataset provides Level 1 (L1) in situ atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and methane (CH4) concentrations as measured on a network of instrumented communications towers across the central and eastern USA operated by the Atmospheric Carbon and Transport-America (ACT-America) project. There were 11 towers instrumented with cavity ring-down spectrometers (CRDS; Picarro Inc.) with measurements beginning in January 2015 and continuing to October 2019. The measurement period varied by tower site. The Picarro analyzers continuously measured total CH4, isotopic ratio of CH4, CO2, CO, and other greenhouse gas concentrations. Not all species were measured at all sites. Complete tower location, elevation, instrument height, and date/time information are also provided. Determination of greenhouse gas fluxes and uncertainty bounds is essential for the evaluation of the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. These L1 data are raw instrument outputs from the Picarro instruments. A Level 2 (L2) product derived from this L1 data is available and generally would be the preferred data for most use cases.