Attenuated atmospheric backscatter profiles measured by the CO2 Sounder lidar in the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE airborne campaign.

A series of attenuated atmospheric backscatter profiles were measured at 1572 nm by the CO 2 Sounder lidar during the eight flights of the 2017 ASCENDS/ABoVE (Active Sensing of CO 2 Emission over Nights, Days, and Seasons, Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment) airborne campaign. In addition to measuring the column average CO 2 mixing ratio from the laser signals reflected by the ground, the CO 2 Sounder lidar also recorded the height-resolved attenuated atmospheric backscatter profiles beneath the aircraft. We have recently processed these vertical profiles with a 15 m vertical spacing and 1 s integration time along the flight path (∼ 200 m) for all the 2017 flights and have posted the results at NASA Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) for Biogeochemical Dynamics 10.3334/ORNLDAAC/2051 (Sun et al., 2022). This paper describes the measurement principles, the data processing technique, and the signal to noise ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]