Earth System Research Laboratory Long-Term Surface Aerosol Measurements

Description

Aerosol measurements began at the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) Global Monitoring Division (GMD) baseline observatories in the mid-1970's with the purpose of detecting a response, or lack of response, of atmospheric aerosols to changing conditions on a global scale. In 1992 ESRL/GMD expanded its aerosol research program to include regional aerosol monitoring stations due to anthropogenic aerosols creating a significant perturbation in the Earth's radiative balance on regional scales. The goals of this regional-scale monitoring program are to characterize means, variability, and trends of climate-forcing properties of different types of aerosols, and the factors that control them. In situ measurements of aerosol optical properties (including light absorption, total scattering, hemispheric backscattering, and total aerosol number concentration) are made at monitoring sites at hourly time resolution. The basic aerosol measurement system consists of a nephelometer (measures aerosol light scattering), absorption photometer (measures light absorption), and a condensation nuclei counter (measures particle number concentration). Data from the aerosol monitoring stations are updated several times a day. Following collection of the raw data at the station, the data are inspected through automatic and manual contamination screenings to eliminate contamination from local pollution sources. Automatic screenings use measured wind speed, direction, and/or total particle number concentration to flag contaminated data. Manual screening is more subjective, relying on the station scientist to evaluate the data in the context of automated contamination flags and their knowledge of the site. Data applications indicate the importance of continuing to provide long-term aerosol in-situ measurements for use in analysis of trends and climatologies, evaluation of model simulations of aerosol climatologies, and behavior and validation of remote sensing retrievals of aerosol optical properties. GMD's measurements also provide ground-truth for satellite measurements and global models, as well as key aerosol parameters for global-scale models. Through the Big Earth Data Initiative (BEDI), ESRL/GMD has taken their data collection and converted files into NetCDF-4, a self-describing format.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
0 Direct download for data ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/aerosol/
47 ESRL/GMD FTP Aerosol Documentation ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/aerosol/README.txt
0 Landing page for the dataset. https://doi.org/10.7289/V55T3HJF
0 Use this web page to find specific data files available from the public ftp file archive of the ESRL Global Monitoring Division. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/data/index.php?category=aerosols
0 NCEI home page with information, data access and contact information. https://www.ncei.noaa.gov
0 Overview of the GCOS Essential Climate Variables. https://public.wmo.int/en/programmes/global-climate-observing-system/essential-climate-variables
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
21 Project page with dataset information. https://esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aero/index.html
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords
0 The information provided on this page seeks to define how the GCMD Keywords are structured, used and accessed. It also provides information on how users can participate in the further development of the keywords. https://earthdata.nasa.gov/about/gcmd/global-change-master-directory-gcmd-keywords

Tags

  • nephelometers
  • atmospheric - composition - aerosol properties
  • vertical location
  • alaska
  • esrl
  • united states of america
  • land surface
  • aerosol light absorption coefficient
  • nesdis
  • aerosols
  • american samoa
  • atmosphere
  • continent
  • aerosol backscatter
  • noaa
  • hawaii
  • antarctica
  • aerosol particle properties
  • aerosol light scattering coefficient
  • aerosol monitor
  • earth system research laboratory
  • north america
  • aerosol number concentration
  • hourly - < daily
  • noaa earth science research laboratory stations
  • u.s. department of commerce
  • earth science
  • global monitoring division
  • condensation nuclei counter
  • light absorption photometer
  • ocean
  • earth system research laboratory (noaa)
  • doc/noaa/nesdis/ncei
  • california
  • air monitoring stations/networks
  • central pacific ocean
  • esrl stations
  • pacific ocean
  • illinois
  • point resolution
  • cnc
  • national centers for environmental information
  • aerosol forward scatter
  • doc/noaa/esrl/gmd

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