ABoVE/ASCENDS: Active Sensing of CO2, CH4, and Water Vapor, Alaska and Canada, 2017

This dataset provides in situ airborne measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and water vapor concentrations, plus air temperature, pressure, relative humidity, and wind speed values over Alaska and the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada during 2017-07-20 to 2017-08-08. Measurements were taken onboard a DC-8 aircraft during this Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days and Seasons (ASCENDS) airborne deployment over portions of the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) domain. CO2 and CH4 were measured with NASA's Atmospheric Vertical Observations of CO2 in the Earth's Troposphere (AVOCET) instrument. Water vapor and relative humidity were measured with Diode Laser Hydrometer. Measurements of column-averaged dry-air mixing ratio CO2 measurements (XCO2) were taken with the CO2 Sounder Lidar instrument. The airborne CO2 Sounder is a pulsed, multi-wavelength Integrated Path Differential Absorption lidar. It estimates XCO2 in the nadir path from the aircraft to the scattering surface by measuring the shape of the 1572.33 nm CO2 absorption line. The data were collected in order to capture the spatial and temporal dynamics of the northern high latitude carbon cycle as part of ABoVE and are provided in ICARTT file format.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated April 20, 2026, 16:27 (UTC)
Created April 1, 2025, 14:04 (UTC)
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id 2930a0fc-5060-4afe-9a93-86e9b5f607b1
harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2050
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-04-13T22:15:58Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher ORNL_DAAC
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 11a0b160b16069d4b9d754a40a945c5475d688357192c50a4eeeccfcd8b0e2fb
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial [[{"WestBoundingCoordinate":-165.685,"NorthBoundingCoordinate":71.2752,"EastBoundingCoordinate":-98.0985,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":34.5893}],"CARTESIAN"]
temporal 2017-07-20/2017-08-08
theme {"Earth Science"}