ABoVE/ASCENDS: Analysis of Pulsed Lidar Measurements of XCO2, 2017 : Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE)

• Main Authors: Abshire, J.B., Mao, J., Riris, H., Kawa, S.R., Sun, X.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: ORNL Distributed Active Archive Center 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Canada; Northwest Territories; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.3334/ornldaac/2050; https://daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/dsviewer.pl?ds_id=2050

This dataset consists of column average CO2 mixing ratio (XCO2) estimated by the airborne CO2 Sounder which is a pulsed, multi-wavelength Integrated Path Differential Absorption lidar during the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE airborne campaign, which was flown on the NASA DC-8 in July and early August of 2017. The flights were designed to assess the accuracy of airborne lidar measurements of XCO2, and to extend lidar measurements to the ABoVE study area in the Arctic. Eight flights were conducted with XCO2 measurements from the lidar along with in-situ CO2 measurements made at the aircraft with the AVOCET and Picarro instruments. Forty-seven spiral-down maneuvers were conducted in locations over California, the Northwest Territories Canada, the Arctic Ocean and Alaska, along with the transit flights from California to Alaska and return. Each spiral maneuver allowed comparing the XCO2 retrievals from the lidar against those computed from CO2 measured at the aircraft. In addition to the XCO2 measurement, the lidar receiver also recorded the time resolved atmospheric backscatter signal strength continuously as the laser pulses propagate through the atmosphere. The CO2 Sounder lidar results show better than 1-ppm agreement between most lidar and in situ measurements in the spirals, both north-south and east-west gradients in XCO2, and local features in XCO2, including one caused by wildfires.