INTRODUCTORY REMARKS GTE/TRACE-P FINAL CHEMICAL AND METEOROLOGICAL DATA

The Global Tropospheric Experiment (GTE) is a continuing field measurement component of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Tropospheric Chemistry Program.  As part of GTE, the Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) mission was conducted over the western Pacific Ocean from February - April 2001.  These data plots contain a selected subset of the GTE/TRACE-P Project data and data acquired by investigator instruments recorded onboard the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center DC-8 aircraft and the Wallops Flight Facility P-3B aircraft during the TRACE-P mission.  This presentation of data is not intended to support original research/analyses, but should assist in identifying data that are of interest.  Hardcopy documents are available in two volumes.  Volume one contains the presentation of data for the DC-8 aircraft and Volume two contains a similar presentation for the P-3B aircraft.  Contact information to obtain hardcopy volumes follows at the end of these remarks.

Abscissa time scales for a given flight are identical.  Ordinate scales for most flight and species are selected by the plotting software.  In a few cases, however, ordinate scales are selected manually to best represent that data measured for a specie during the flight; some data may be off-scale.  In such a case, the max or min of the data clipped are provided.  As a result of the software used for the plots and the data archive use of codes (in place of valid data) for data taken (1) during instrument calibration, (2) when measurements were at "detection limit" and/or (3) when measurements are invalid, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish  from the plots if data are off-scale or have been coded as invalid.  For example, a symbol without an attached line may either mean that adjacent data are off-scale or have been coded as invalid.  Inspection of the other plotted data often provides information which may resolve the uncertainty.

In order to maintain the standardized format, plots for flights in which a specie data are not available are plotted with the axes and a "NO DATA" entry.  Please note that the label "NO DATA" is used whether final data (1) is not now available and may be available later  or (2) may never be available for a flight.  A parameter was not selected for plotting if it was known that it would never be available for any flight.

GMT time has been plotted with a continuous numerical scale beyond 24 hours to conform to the available plotting routine.  GMT midnight is always 24 hours.

Additional supporting data products available from the GTE Data Management Office include:

• TRACE-P Expedition Plan - An overview of  the scientific objectives, experiment design, and data management plan for the field experiment.
  
• Videotapes from each flight - Forward-looking and nadir view videotapes are available from both the DC-8 and the P-3B aircraft.  Tapes with quad images are also available for the DC-8 (forward, nadir, weather radar, stormscope) and the P-3B (forward +10^o, forward -10^o, nadir, stormscope).
  
• Ozonesonde data - Correlative measurements from the following sites are available from pre-expedition through spring 2002 at a rate of once per week. Trinidad Head, California; Hilo, Hawaii; Cheju Island, Korea; Sapporo, Tsukuba (Tateno), Naha, and Kagoshima, Japan; Hong Kong; and Taipei, Taiwan. 

TRACE-P meteorological products available are:

• Synoptic Overview - Brief meteorological discussions of each DC-8 and P-3B flight mission, including streamlines, profiles and satellite imagery.
  
• Airmass trajectories - Five-day back trajectories for each flight.
  
• Satellite Imagery - A collection of GOES 8, GOES 10, and GMS images are available for the TRACE-P period.  Images corresponding to each flight with the aircraft flight tracks superimposed are included in the data archive.

This is a product of the Langley GTE Data Archive Office.  Inquiries about products available from the GTE Data Archive should be addressed to:

NASA GTE Data Manager
Mail Stop 483
NASA Langley Research Center
Hampton, VA 23681-2199

ATTN: Clyde Brown
Phone: (757) 864-5839
Fax:     (757) 864-7790
Email: gte+archive@larc.nasa.gov