Spatially-coordinated airborne data and complementary products for aerosol, gas, cloud, and meteorological studies: The NASA ACTIVATE dataset

The NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) produced a unique dataset for research into aerosol-cloud-meteorology interactions with applications extending from process-based studies to multi-scale model intercomparison and improvement, and remote sensing algorithm assessments and advancements. ACTIVATE used two NASA Langley Research Center aircraft, a HU-25 Falcon and King Air, to conduct systematic and spatially coordinated flights over the northwest Atlantic Ocean amounting to 162 joint flights and 17 other single-aircraft flights between 2020 and 2022 across all seasons. Data cover 574 and 592 cumulative flights hours for the Falcon and King Air, respectively. The HU-25 Falcon flew conducted profiling at different level legs below, in, and just above boundary layer clouds (< 3 km) and obtained in situ measurements of trace gases, aerosol particles, clouds, and atmospheric state parameters. In cloud-free conditions, the Falcon similarly conducted profiling at different level legs within and immediately above the boundary layer. The King Air (the high-flyer) flew at approximately ~9 km conducting remote sensing with a lidar and polarimeter while also launching dropsondes. Collectively, simultaneous data collected from both aircraft help characterize the same vertical column of the atmosphere. In addition to individual instrument files, data from the Falcon aircraft are combined into “merge files” on the publicly available data archive that are created at different time resolutions of interest (e.g., 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 s, or matching an individual data product start and stop times). This paper describes the ACTIVATE flight strategy, instrument and complementary dataset products, data access and usage details, and data application notes.