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The Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC) took place from 7 January to 11 July 2020 in the tropical North Atlantic between the eastern edge of Barbados and 51∘ W, the longitude of the Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) mooring. Measurements were made to gather information on shallow atmospheric convection, the effects of aerosols and clouds on the ocean surface energy budget, and mesoscale oceanic processes. Multiple platforms were deployed during ATOMIC including the NOAA RV Ronald H. Brown (RHB) (7 January to 13 February) and WP-3D Orion (P-3) aircraft (17 January to 10 February), the University of Colorado's Robust Autonomous Aerial Vehicle-Endurant Nimble (RAAVEN) uncrewed aerial system (UAS) (24 January to 15 February), NOAA- and NASA-sponsored Saildrones (12 January to 11 July), and Surface Velocity Program Salinity (SVPS) surface ocean drifters (23 January to 29 April). The RV Ronald H. Brown conducted in situ and remote sensing measurements of oceanic and atmospheric properties with an emphasis on mesoscale oceanic–atmospheric coupling and aerosol–cloud interactions. In addition, the ship served as a launching pad for Wave Gliders, Surface Wave Instrument Floats with Tracking (SWIFTs), and radiosondes. Details of measurements made from the RV Ronald H. Brown, ship-deployed assets, and other platforms closely coordinated with the ship during ATOMIC are provided here. These platforms include Saildrone 1064 and the RAAVEN UAS as well as the Barbados Cloud Observatory (BCO) and Barbados Atmospheric Chemistry Observatory (BACO). Inter-platform comparisons are presented to assess consistency in the data sets. Data sets from the RV Ronald H. Brown and deployed assets have been quality controlled and are publicly available at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) data archive (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/ATOMIC-2020, last access: 2 April 2021). Point-of-contact information and links to individual data sets with digital object identifiers (DOIs) are provided herein.

This paper describes observations obtained during the Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC) by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Lockheed WP-3D Orion research aircraft based on the island of Barbados during the period Jan 17–Feb 11 2020. The aircraft obtained 95 hours of observations over eleven flights, many of which were coordinated with the NOAA research ship R/V Ronald H. Brown and autonomous platforms deployed from the ship. Each flight contained a mixture of sampling strategies including: high-altitude circles with frequent dropsonde deployment to characterize the large-scale environment; slow descents and ascents to measure the distribution of water vapor and its isotopic composition; stacked legs aimed at sampling the microphysical and thermodynamic state of the boundary layer; and offset straight flight legs for observing clouds and the ocean surface with remote sensing instruments and the thermal structure of the ocean with in situ sensors dropped from the plane. The characteristics of the it in situ observations, expendable devices, and remote sensing instrumentation are described, as is the processing used in deriving estimates of physical quantities. Data archived at the National Center for Environmental Information include flight-level data such as aircraft navigation and basic thermodynamic information (https://doi.org/10.25921/7jf5-wv54); high-accuracy measurements of water vapor concentration from an isotope analyzer (https://doi.org/10.25921/c5yx-7w29); profiles of sea water temperature made with Airborne eXpendable BathyThermographs (AXBTs, https://doi.org/10.25921/pe39-sx75); profiles of radar reflectivity, Doppler velocity, and spectrum width from a nadir-looking W-band (94 GHz) radar (https://doi.org/10.25921/n1hc-dc30); estimates of cloud presence, the cloud top location, and the cloud-top radar reflectivity and temperature, along with estimates of 10-m wind speed obtained from remote sensing instruments operating in the microwave and thermal infrared spectral regions (https://doi.org/10.25921/x9q5-9745); and ocean surface wave characteristics from a Wide Swath Radar Altimeter (https://doi.org/10.25921/qm06-qx04). Data are provided as netCDF files following Climate and Forecast conventions.

The Atlantic Tradewind Ocean-Atmosphere Mesoscale Interaction Campaign (ATOMIC) took place from January 7 to July 11, 2020 in the tropical North Atlantic between the eastern edge of Barbados and 51° W, the longitude of the Northwest Tropical Atlantic Station (NTAS) mooring. Measurements were made to gather information on shallow atmospheric convection, the effects of aerosols and clouds on the ocean surface energy budget, and mesoscale oceanic processes. Multiple platforms were deployed during ATOMIC including the NOAA RV Ronald H. Brown (RHB) (Jan. 7 to Feb. 13) and WP-3D Orion (P-3) aircraft (Jan. 17 to Feb. 10), the University of Colorado's RAAVEN Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) (Jan. 24 to Feb. 15), NOAA- and NASA-sponsored Saildrones (Jan. 12 to Jul. 11), and Surface Velocity Program Salinity (SVPS) surface ocean drifters (Jan. 23 to Apr. 29). The RV Ronald H. Brown conducted in situ and remote sensing measurements of oceanic and atmospheric properties with an emphasis on mesoscale oceanic-atmospheric coupling and aerosol-cloud interactions. In addition, the ship served as a launching pad for Wave Gliders, Surface Wave Instrument Floats with Tracking (SWIFTs), and radiosondes. Details of measurements made from the RV Ronald H. Brown, ship-deployed assets, and other platforms closely coordinated with the ship during ATOMIC are provided here. These platforms include Saildrone 1064 and the RAAVEN UAS as well as the Barbados Cloud Observatory (BCO) and Barbados Atmospheric Chemistry Observatory (BACO). Inter-platform comparisons are presented to assess consistency in the data sets. Data sets from the RV Ronald H. Brown and deployed assets have been quality controlled and are publicly available at the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory (PSL) ATOMIC ftp server (ftp://ftp2.psl.noaa.gov/Projects/ATOMIC/data/ (Quinn et al., 2020). In addition, the data have been submitted to NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) data archive (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/) for Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs). Point of contact information and links to individual data sets are provided herein.