AppalAIR

Cimel Sunphotometer (NASA AERONET)

Data

Three quality levels:

• Raw - level 1.0
• Cloud-Screened - level 1.5
• Quality Assured - level 2.0

 Reporting frequency: AOD reported every 15 minutes during clear daylight hours.

Click here to be redirected to the NASA AERONET website where you can download the data.

 Downloaded data comes in 1 of 3 file formats depending on what is downloaded:

• Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) - .lev
• Total Optical Depth - .tot
• Spectral Deconvolution Algorithm (SDA) Retrievals - .ONEILL

The number at the end of the file format indicates the level of quality.  For example :

100101_141232_Appalachian_State.lev10 is raw AOD data
while
100101_141232_Appalachian_State.lev20 is quality assured AOD data 

Visualizations of the data

Information about the data

See the videos below for help downloading and reading the data.

Instrument Information

Name: CIMEL Sunphotometer (NASA AERONET)

Model: CIMEL  #CE318N-EBS9

Ancillary Information

Data products include:

1. Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at the following wavelengths 340, 380, 440, 500, 675, 870, 1020, and 1640nm
2. Preicipitable water vapor
3. coarse and fine mode contributions to AOD
4. Aerosol size distributions (.dubovik file only)
5. Angstrom exponent
6. Asymmetry parameter and single-scattering albedo at 440nm, 677nm, 870nm, and 1020nm (.dubovik file only)
7. Angular distribution of sky radiance 

Solar Pyranometer

Data

Reporting frequency: Every 6 minutes

Data comes in three quality levels:

1. Level 1.0 data are unscreened and do not have calibration applied
2. Level 1.5 data are screened for anomalies
3. Level 2.0 data are screened for anomalies, pre and post field calibrated, and quality assured

Go to the NASA AERONET site to access the data or visualizations of the data.

Files come with 1 of 3 different naming conventions:

1. .lev10 - level 1.0 data
2. .lev15 - level 1.5 data
3. .lev20 - level 2.0 data

See the video below for helping accessing/using the data.