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Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment Ozone Data

Metadata Updated: March 13, 2026

The Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment (AJAX) is a partnership between NASA's Ames Research Center and H211, L.L.C., facilitating routine in-situ measurements over California, Nevada, and the coastal Pacific in support of satellite validation. The standard payload complement includes rigorously-calibrated ozone (O3), formaldehyde (HCHO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4) mixing ratios, as well as meteorological data including 3-D winds. Multiple vertical profiles (to ~8.5 km) can be accomplished in each 2-hr flight. The AJAX project has been collecting trace gas data on a regular basis in all seasons for over a decade, helping to assess satellite sensors' health and calibration over significant portions of their lifetimes, and complementing surface and tower-based observations collected elsewhere in the region. AJAX supports NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2/3) and Japan's Greenhouse Gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT) and GOSAT-2, and collaborates with many other research organizations (e.g. California Air Resources Board (CARB), NOAA, United States Forest Service (USFS), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)). AJAX celebrated its 200th science flight in 2016, and previous studies have investigated topics as varied as stratospheric-to-tropospheric transport, forest fire plumes, atmospheric river events, long-range transport of pollution from Asia to the western US, urban outflow, and emissions from gas leaks, oil fields, and dairies.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: See this page for license information.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date March 13, 2026

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date March 13, 2026
Publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/ASDC/AJAX_O3
Data Last Modified 2026-03-09
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 50bc433e-9752-4af3-8f31-c64430bb920c
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
License https://www.usa.gov/government-works
Old Spatial "CARTESIAN",{"Boundary":{"Points":{"Latitude":34,"Longitude":-125},{"Latitude":34,"Longitude":-114},{"Latitude":42,"Longitude":-114},{"Latitude":42,"Longitude":-125},{"Latitude":34,"Longitude":-125}}}, Maximum Altitude, 8.5 km
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d46dd1771f2c8a82e9a6cab5482179857a7c3cefd972a2b1df4955a262158239
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial
Temporal 2011-02-01/2018-06-07

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