Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) Airborne Campaign

Overview

The ASCENDS Airborne Campaign was a multi-year effort conducted between 2011 and 2017 to support the science definition study of the Active Sensing of CO2 Emissions over Nights, Days, and Seasons (ASCENDS) mission, whose objective was to make global atmospheric column carbon dioxide (CO2) measurements without a seasonal, latitudinal, or diurnal bias. Through the airborne campaign, several NASA lidar teams made substantial advances in developing suitable lidar techniques and instruments, demonstrating lidar capabilities from aircraft, improving the understanding of the characteristics needed in the measurements, and advancing the technologies needed for the space lidar. The 2017 ASCENDS airborne deployment was flown on the NASA DC-8 in late July and early August 2017 and was planned in coordination with the NASA Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) 2017 field campaign.