An Introduction to the Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network
This StoryMap will highlight the Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) campaign, its goals, and its data products.
Introduction:
The Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) is an interagency collaboration between NASA, NOAA, and the EPA that has been operating since October 2011, and was designed to perform studies of air quality and atmospheric modeling as well as validation and interpretation of satellite observations. TOLNet is currently comprised of seven Differential Absorption Lidars (DIALs), each of which are unique and have a history of ozone observation prior to joining the network. Five of the lidars are mobile systems that can be deployed at remote locations to support field campaigns. The five mobile lidars are the Langley Mobile Ozone Lidar (LMOL) at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), the Tropospheric Ozone (TROPOZ) lidar at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Tunable Optical Profile for Aerosol and oZone (TOPAZ) lidar at NOAA's Chemical Science Laboratory (CSL), the Autonomous Mobile Ozone LIDAR instrument for Tropospheric Experiments (AMOLITE) lidar at Environmental and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) in Toronto, Canada, and the Rocket-city O3 Quality Evaluation in the Troposphere (RO3QET) lidar at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama (UAH). The remaining lidars, the City College of New York (CCNY) New York Tropospheric Ozone Lidar System (NYTOLS) in New York City, New York, and the Table Mountain Facility (TMF) tropospheric ozone lidar system located at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), are fixed systems.
Science Objectives:
- Provide high spatio-temporal measurements of ozone from near the surface to the top of the troposphere.
- Identify an ozone lidar instrument design that would be suitable to address the needs of NASA, NOAA and EPA air quality scientists who express a desire for these ozone profiles.
- Perform basic scientific research into the processes that create and destroy the ubiquitously observed ozone laminae and other ozone features in the troposphere.
Lidars:
TOLNet Lidar Locations
Langley Mobile Ozone Lidar:
The LMOL trailer with collocated ozonesode launch. The lidar beam and telescope are located at the open door on the trailer roof. Photo Credit: https://www-air.larc.nasa.gov/missions/TOLNet/
The LMOL is a compact DIAL system that was developed through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to provide ozone, aerosol, and cloud atmospheric profile measurements. The lidar system is mounted in an environmentally controlled trailer to enable mobility and can be easily towed with a truck to remote sites. The objective is to make the system mobile such that it can be setup at remote sites in support of air quality field campaigns. The following image shoes the lidar trailer with a collocated ozonesonde launch which was used to validate the lidar returns. The LMOL has participated in many suborbital campaigns, including DISCOVER-AQ, LISTOS, OWLETS, and TRACER-AQ.
GSFC TROPospheric OZone DIAL:
The ground based GSFC TROPOZ SIAL has been routinely taking measurements in the Baltimore-Washington D.C. region (Greenbelt, MD) since Fall of 2013. The TROPOZ has been designed and installed in a transportable trailer. The TROPOZ has since been deployed for several campaigns, including NASA's 2014 DISCOVER-AQ, LISTOS, OWLETS, and TRACER-AQ campaigns.
The GSFC TROPOZ DIAL was deployed to Ft. Collins, CO during the 2014 DISCOVER-AQ campaign. The NASA P3B is shown spiraling over the site while the TROPOZ is taking measurements. Ozonesondes were also launched at the site to help validate the aircraft and lidar profiles. Photo Credit: L. Twigg
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Ozone Lidar:
NASA JPL TMF Lidar. Photo credtis: https://lidar.jpl.nasa.gov/
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Table Mountain Facility (TMF) is home to several lidar systems, including the JPL Ozone Lidar, a DIAL that has been routinely measuring stratospheric ozone and middle atmospheric temperature since 1988. The modified tropospheric lidar has been taking measurements since 1999 and became a member of TOLNet in 2011.
NOAA Chemical Science Laboratory Ozone Lidar:
Truck-mounted TOPAZ ozone lidar with roof-top, two-axis scanner. Photo credit: https://www-air.larc.nasa.gov/missions/TOLNet/
The NOAA CSL Ozone Lidar is a state-of-the-art, compact, tunable ozone lidar based on a laser transmitter originally developed by Science and Engineering Services Inc. (SESI). The Tunable Optical Profiler for Aerosol and oZone (TOPAZ) lidar was designed for deployment on a small aircraft. In winter 2011/2012, TOPAZ was converted from a downward-looking airborne system into a pointing instrument that was installed into a truck with a roof-mounted scanner. The scanner is pointed at a shallow elevation, which can provide high resolution ozone profiles as close to the surface as a few meters. TOPAZ was first deployed as a mobile platform during the Uintah Basin Wintertime Ozone Study (UBWOS) in February 2012. Today, TOPAZ is primarily used to measure ozone profiles during high ozone events associated with stratosphere troposphere transport (STT) events.
Environment and Climate Change Canada Ozone Lidar:
The Autonomous Mobile Ozone LIDAR Instrument for Tropospheric Experiments (AMOLITE) was developed by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to simultaneously measure the vertical profile of tropospheric ozone, aerosol, and water vapor (nighttime only) from near ground altitudes. A dual lidar system is used by AMOLITE, housed in a single climate-controlled trailer.
AMOLITE operating in full autonomous mode, deployed on a field experiment. Photo credit: https://www-air.larc.nasa.gov/missions/TOLNet/
University of Alabama Huntsville Ozone Lidar:
RO3QET and SeaRey at Dauphin Island, Alabama. Photo Credits: Mike Newchurch (UAH)
The Rocket-city O3 Quality Evaluation in the Troposphere (RO3QET) lidar was developed jointly by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and NASA's GSFC. The system retrieves ozone with a typical integration time of 10 minutes, and a vertical resolution of 150m in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) to roughly 750m at the upper troposphere. The primary objective of this lidar is to provide accurate tropospheric ozone structure and improve future satellite retrievals.
The City College of New York Ozone Lidar:
The ground-based CCNY Tropospheric Ozone DIAL was built and has made regular observations at the CCNY campus since the spring of 2022. The lidar was installed in June 2004 to monitor the atmospheric environment over New York City, New York. The system consists of one transmitter and two receivers, one for near-range and one for far-range detection.
CCNY Lidar. Photo Credits: CCNY CREST Lab: https://crest.cuny.edu/lab-facilities/
Access the Data:
TOLNet data archived at the NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) can be accessed on the ASDC website, Earthdata Search, and the TOLNet website, which are linked to the buttons below. Data is organized by each lidar, with six data products (collections) currently available – one for each operational lidar.
NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC):
The NASA Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) is one of twelve Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs), and is located in the Science Directorate at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. The ASDC is responsible for the archival and distribution of NASA Earth science data in the study areas of clouds, radiation budget, aerosols, and tropospheric composition.