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    • Sulfates, Clouds and Radiation America NASA ER-2 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Airborne Simulator (MAS) Data

    Metadata Updated: March 12, 2026

    SCAR_A_ER2_MAS data are Sulfates, Clouds and Radiation America (SCARA) NASA ER2 Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) Airborne Simulator (MAS) Data in Hierarchical Data Format (HDF).Smoke/Sulfates, Clouds and Radiation - America (SCAR-A) data include physical and chemical components of the Earth's surface, the atmosphere and the radiation field collected in the eastern part of the United States with an emphasis in air pollution.The primary objective of the SCAR-A experiment was to help scientists characterize the the relationship between sulfate particles and clouds' reflective properties. Sulfate aerosols are believed to provide condensation nuclei, resulting in smaller, more numerous droplets within a cloud. SCAR-A was the first in a series of experiments. It was was followed by the SCAR-C experiment conducted over California in 1994. A third experiment, SCAR-B was conducted in Brazil during August and September 1995. The MODIS Airbourne Simulator (MAS) is a modified Daedalus Wildfire scanning spectrometer which flies on a NASA ER-2 and provides spectral information similar to that provided by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), launched on Terra (EOS AM-1) in 1999 and Aqua (EOS PM-1) in 2002. The MAS spectrometer acquires high spatial resolution imagery in the wavelength range of 0.55 to 14.3 microns. A total of 50 spectral bands are available in this range, and the digitizer can be configured to collect data from any 12 of these bands. The digitizer was configured with four 10-bit channels and seven 8-bit channels. The MAS spectrometer was mated to a scanner subassembly which collected image data with an IFOV of 2.5 mrad, giving a ground resolution of 50 meters from 20000 meters altitude, and a cross track scan width of 85.92 degrees. The data granules were written using the self documenting file storage format provided through the netCDF interface routines included in the HDF libraries.

    Access & Use Information

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

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    Dates

    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2026

    Metadata Source

    Harvested from NASA Data.json

    Other Data Resources

    Additional Metadata

    Resource Type Dataset
    Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
    Metadata Updated Date March 12, 2026
    Publisher NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC
    Maintainer
    Identifier 10.5067/ASDC_DAAC/SCAR_A/0001
    Data Last Modified 2026-03-10
    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 efcd9beb-9456-48bc-a762-060ec01cba79
    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":35,"Longitude":-99.97},{"Latitude":35,"Longitude":-70},{"Latitude":44.6,"Longitude":-70},{"Latitude":44.6,"Longitude":-99.97},{"Latitude":35,"Longitude":-99.97}}}
    Program Code 026:000
    Source Datajson Identifier True
    Source Hash 2b19ced597e642deccbed7fed0ee8a953136c9991abb2f1df1f6e51eebbaaa2a
    Source Schema Version 1.1
    Spatial
    Temporal 1993-07-12/1993-07-29

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