DATA VISUALIZATION
• + Synergy Tool
• + Map Explorer

AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH (V3)-SOLAR
• + Data Display
• + Download Tool
• + Download All Sites
• + Climatology Tables
• + Web Service

AEROSOL INVERSIONS (V3)
• + Data Display
• + Download Tool
• + Download All Sites
• + Web Service

SOLAR FLUX
• + Data Display

OCEAN COLOR
• + V3 Data Display
• + V3 Web Service
• + Download All Sites

LUNAR AOD (V3) - PROVISIONAL
• + Data Display
• + Download Tool
• + Download All Sites
• + Web Service

ZENITH RADIANCE (V3)
• + Web Service
CLOUD MODE (V2) - PROVISIONAL
• + Data Display

Aerosol measurement observations from ground-based sun photometers and sun/sky radiometers have played a critical role in developing, reformulating and validating satellite algorithms to characterize aerosol optical depth, modal aerosol retrievals and single scattering albedo among other parameters.   New and improved algorithms are being developed for current and future satellite missions that will place a greater demand on the accuracy and fidelity of the ground-based measurements for validation, multi data set synergism and long-term climate research.  Heretofore satellite validation studies using sun and sky scanning spectral radiometer measurements such as AERONET have relied on point observations extrapolated to a two dimensional domain to compare to the satellite retrieval.  Additionally few of the ground-based remote sensing measurements have had a rigorous comparison or validation against other ground-based measurements particularly in situ observations of aerosol size and absorption.  DRAGON-USA will provide a data set to address satellite validation and in situ comparisons.

+ DRAGON White Paper

• Establish a mesoscale gridded network of sun photometers that encompasses, urban, agricultural and mountain landscapes over the Washington DC metro area
• Optimize the grid to validate/collaborate inversion products in conjunction with aircraft flights performing in situ measurements
• Optimize the gridded network to validate satellite retrievals from 50 m to 10 Km pixel resolution
• Supplement the gridded network with non gridded sites to capture known aerosol variability
• Develop a geo-referenced database that will accommodate supplementary/complimentary data sets

The campaign will be implemented under the NASA-funded Earth Venture airborne mission, DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality). The campaign will employ NASA aircraft to make a series of flights, with scientific instruments on board to measure gaseous and particulate pollution, beginning in July 2011 in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. The series of flights will be made by NASA Langley's King Air and NASA's P-3B. The measurements will be taken in concert with ground observations in order to shed light on how satellites could be used to make similar, consistent measurements over time, with the ultimate goal of putting better data in the hands of policymakers and elected officials. DISCOVER-AQ is a collaboration among scientists at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.; NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.; NASA’s Ames Research Center, outside San Francisco; and multiple universities. DRAGON will be a significant part of the ground-based aerosol measurement program.

In addition to DISCOVER-AQ collaborators, AERONET will participate with the following groups:

WeatherBug Networks/Earth Networks: Establish approximately 30 AERONET sites co-located with school based WxBug automatic weather station sites. Ten to twenty more AERONET sites will be located in the region to complete the mesoscale gridded network of sun photometers.

Ihab Abboud-AEROCAN: Canadian affiliate, Environment Canada, contributing approximately 15 AERONET sites to DRAGON.

Philippe Goloub-PHOTONS: French AERONET affiliate will provide polarized sun photometer, car mounted mobile sun photometer and lidar system.

Figure 1 shows the AERONET sites (yellow AERONET/WxBug and purple AERONET/DISCOVER AQ and orange long term AERONET sites). Download KMZ file for Figure 1.

DRAGON Text Lists

+ Level 1.0 AOD Data (TXT)
+ Level 1.5 AOD Data (TXT)
+ Level 2.0 AOD Data (TXT)

DRAGON Google Earth Distribution

+ Level 1.0 AOD Data (Google Earth KMZ)
+ Level 1.5 AOD Data (Google Earth KMZ)
+ Level 2.0 AOD Data (Google Earth KMZ)