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AirMSPI – Airborne Multi-angle SpectroPolarimeter Imager

Friday, February 16, 2018

The following press release was issued on 2 February, 2018:

The NASA Langley Atmospheric Sciences Data Center (ASDC) and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announce the public release of Version 001 of the Airborne Multiangle SpectroPolarimetric Imager (AirMSPI) Level 2 Cloud Droplet Size and Cloud Optical Depth Data Product for the ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES) flight campaign.

AirMSPI flies in the nose of NASA's high-altitude ER-2 aircraft. The instrument was built by JPL and the University of Arizona under NASA’s Instrument Incubator and Airborne Instrument Technology Transition Programs, and is aimed primarily at remote sensing of the amounts and microphysical properties of aerosols and clouds.

The AirMSPI Level 2 Cloud Droplet Size and Cloud Optical Depth Data Product contains a droplet size distribution (DSD), parameterized by an effective radius (reff) and effective variance (veff) of a gamma size distribution, as well as a spatially resolved cloud optical depth (COD) at 470, 660 and 865 nm. These L2 products are derived from L1B2 radiometric and polarimetric data taken in the instrument's continuous sweep mode with 25 m spatial sampling. Along with the L2 products, their retrieval uncertainties are reported, as propagated from the relevant uncertainties in instrument radiometry and polarimetry. Files are distributed in NetCDF4 format.

This release of AirMPSI L2 data contains targets over ocean acquired in sweep mode during the ORACLES flight campaign, including the check-out and transit flights. ORACLES was based out of Walvis Bay, Namibia and focused on the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Namibia and Angola. AirMSPI L2 data were acquired from 3 August to 29 September, 2016. More details about the ORACLES campaign and AirMSPI participation can be found at https://espo.nasa.gov/oracles.

Information about these products, details about product quality, and mechanisms to access the data can be found under AirMSPI Data and Information at the ASDC website, https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/.

The Classic Airborne Visible and Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-C) and Portable Remote Imaging Spectrometer (PRISM) are deployed with the NASA ER2 to Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) on the Island of Oahu.  The mission has conducted most of the flights for Coral Reefs targets and has had successful day/night ASTER underpasses for studying the volcano and volcanic gas plume. 

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