Attenuated atmospheric backscatter profiles measured by the CO 2 Sounder lidar in the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE airborne campaign

• Published in: Earth System Science Data
• Main Authors: X. Sun, P. T. Kolbeck, J. B. Abshire, S. R. Kawa, J. Mao
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2022
• Subjects: Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Geology; QE1-996.5; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-3821-2022; https://doaj.org/article/dadc8045cdd04770ae6aaa3e85b5d79b

A series of attenuated atmospheric backscatter profiles were measured at 1572 nm by the CO 2 Sounder lidar during the eight flights of the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE (Active Sensing of CO 2 Emission over Nights, Days, and Seasons, Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment) airborne campaign. In addition to measuring the column average CO 2 mixing ratio from the laser signals reflected by the ground, the CO 2 Sounder lidar also recorded the height-resolved attenuated atmospheric backscatter profiles beneath the aircraft. We have recently processed these vertical profiles with a 15 m vertical spacing and 1 s integration time along the flight path ( ∼ 200 m) for all the 2017 flights and have posted the results at NASA Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for Biogeochemical Dynamics https://doi.org/10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2051 (Sun et al., 2022). This paper describes the measurement principles, the data processing technique, and the signal to noise ratios.