In the Chesapeake Lighthouse and Aircraft Measurements for Satellites (CLAMS) field study, carried out off the east coast of the United States from 10 July through 2 August 2001, the University of Washington's Convair-580 research aircraft flew eleven research flights. These flights provided aerosol and trace gas measurements, and sunphotometer measurements of aerosol optical depth and column water vapor and ozone, from close to the ocean surface to ~3 km altitude. On seven occasions these measurements were beneath Terra satellite overpass, on five occasions beneath NASA ER-2 aircraft overpasses, on nine occasions over the Chesapeake Bay lighthouse, which was instrumented for ocean and atmospheric measurements, and on many occasions over instrumented buoys. On July 17, six research aircraft, including the Convair-580 and the ER-2, flew simultaneously at different altitudes above the Chesapeake Bay lighthouse under a cloudless sky as the Terra satellite passed over.

In this paper an overview will be given of the measurements obtained aboard the Convair-580, with emphasis on the carbonaceous content of the aerosol mass, the aerosol light scattering and absorption coefficients, and the aerosol single-scattering albedo.