Supporting Research from NASA Air Quality Field Studies with the Sub-Orbital Order Tool (SOOT)

NASA field campaigns have propelled advances in atmospheric sciences as they aim to gain a deeper understanding of specific atmospheric processes or phenomena related to air quality issues. Over the last decade, a large number of field campaigns were conducted with a primary focus on air quality, producing valuable datasets on pollutants, e.g., O3, precursors, and intermediate photochemical products. These measurements play a critical role to better understand complex and unique air quality situations as well as to assess models and satellite observations. Due to the large number and variety of in-situ and remote sensing observations within these campaigns, it can be challenging for researchers who are not familiar with specific field campaign measurements to find available datasets needed for their research. The NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) has developed the Sub-Orbital Order Tool (SOOT) to enhance users’ ability to search and discover datasets. SOOT adopts a variable-centric approach to accommodate the needs of researchers at large by supporting users with different levels of suborbital data expertise. This is accomplished through dual interfaces that allow for users to search across datasets through either campaign, variable, platform, geographic location, and/or date. SOOT can support both spatial and/or temporal distribution analysis and comprehensive characterization of air quality relevant phenomena. SOOT currently holds data from sixteen field campaigns readily available to access with more being added. Beyond SOOT’s cross campaign discoverability, SOOT’s merge tool allows users to transform field study observations to analysis-ready products, e.g., interpretive analysis involving multiple variables, comparison of measurements of the same variable, model assessments, and remote sensing validation. The merge tool works by aggregating measurements from the same platform and flight at different time resolutions to a common time base, including navigation and meteorology data. This presentation will review how SOOT can be used for air quality related studies.