ATom: L2 Measurements of In Situ Airborne Formaldehyde (ISAF)

This dataset provides the atmospheric volume mixing ratio of formaldehyde measured during airborne campaigns conducted by NASA's Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission. ATom deploys an extensive gas and aerosol payload on the NASA DC-8 aircraft for systematic, global-scale sampling of the atmosphere, profiling continuously from 0.2 to 12 km altitude. Flights occurred in each of 4 seasons from 2016 to 2018. The NASA In Situ Airborne Formaldehyde (ISAF) instrument, based at the Goddard Space Flight Center, measures formaldehyde on high-altitude NASA aircraft. The instrument uses laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) to obtain the high detection sensitivity needed to detect formaldehyde in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere where abundances are 10 parts per trillion. LIF also enables a fast time response needed to measure the abundance of formaldehyde in the finely structured outflow of convective storms. These measurements of formaldehyde will be used elucidate mechanisms of convective transport and quantify the effects of boundary layer pollutants on the ozone photochemistry and cloud microphysics of the upper atmosphere.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Maintainer Earthdata Forum
Last Updated June 2, 2026, 18:30 (UTC)
Created April 1, 2025, 14:38 (UTC)
accessLevel public
bureauCode {026:00}
catalog_conformsTo https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
harvest_object_id 58cd2d39-0c32-437e-a842-5e0a3d2bab1d
harvest_source_id b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title Science Discovery Engine
identifier 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/1730
license https://www.usa.gov/government-works
modified 2026-06-01T22:15:59Z
programCode {026:000}
publisher ORNL_DAAC
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 046bf00effab2b246062cfa17d15ddefb06faf383169e949011dec3ee83caaf5
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial ["CARTESIAN", [{"WestBoundingCoordinate": -180.0, "NorthBoundingCoordinate": 80.5222, "EastBoundingCoordinate": 180.0, "SouthBoundingCoordinate": -80.1179}]]
temporal 2016-07-29/2018-05-07
theme {"Earth Science"}