AEP-NOAA Aircraft Data - Oil Sands Monitoring

Contact AEP, Resource Stewardship Division, Airshed Sciences before using these data: AEP.RSD-AWS-AirshedSciences@gov.ab.ca

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CO2 and CH4 flight data and emissions estimates provided by Scientific Aviation. Data retrieved from AEP-NOAA shared drive on: 29 Sep 2020, 13-14 Oct 2020
2017 flask data provided by NOAA. Retrieved from AEP-NOAA shared drive on: 2 May 2018
2018 flask data provided by UC Irvine via e-mail on: 11 February 2019


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AEP_NOAA_Flight_Summary.csv

List of all AEP-NOAA flights, including the following information:
- Date of flight
- Site - description of facility or area covered by the flight
- Flight type (flight loops around the plant, mine, pond, or the full facility perimeter; or raster flights - low altitude flight over facility in parallel lines). A single data file (i.e., flight) may contain multiple components (i.e., plant, mind, pond, perimeter, or raster). This document lists the start and end times for each component within a data file.
- Aircraft identifier (N617DH or N2132X)
- Start time and end time (recorded in EPOCH time - seconds since midnight Jan 1 1970 in UTC time zone)

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CO2 and CH4 Flight Data (merge_YYYYMMDD_AAAAAA.csv)

Files contain key parameters measured during the aircraft campaign on a 1-second time grid, including ambient concentrations of CH4 and CO2, meteorological, and aviation parameters. These data were used to estimate emissions of CH4 and CO2, using methods described in Conley et al. (2017). Files include data for all flights, including the flights that did not meet criteria for suitability for emissions estimates.

Files are split into four zipped folders due to size limits: 2017 (all flights), Apr/May 2018, July 2018, and September 2018.

Files are titled: merge_YYYYMMDD_AAAAAA.csv, where
- YYYY = Year
- MM = Month
- DD = Day
- AAAAAA = Aircraft identifier (N617DH or N2132X)

Below is a list of columns included in the files

- Time (EPOCH) - seconds since midnight Jan 1 1970 (time zone is UTC)
- Latitude
- Longitude
- AMSL (m) - altitude above mean sea level
- AGL (m) - altitude above ground level
- Heading (deg) - aircraft heading angle
- WindU (m/s) - u component of wind
- WindV (m/s) - v component of wind
- Temperature (C)
- RH (%) - relative humidity
- CH4 (ppm) - methane mixing ratio in parts per million
- CO2 (ppm) - carbon dioxide mixing ratio in parts per million

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AEP_NOAA_Hourly_Emission_Estimates.xslx

Files contain hourly emission rates and uncertainties for CO2 and CH4 for each flight segment, estimated by Scientific Aviation (Conley et al., 2017). Some flight segments did not meet the evaluation criteria designed to ensure: (i) complete plume capture, (ii) sufficiently strong and consistent winds, (iii) negligible upwind sources, and (iv) adequate surface extrapolation. The algorithm does not produce reliable emission estimates unless these criteria are met. Flight segments which did not meet all criteria are not included in this file. Blank ce;;s mean that the hourly emission estimate for that given parameter (i.e., CO2 or CH4) did not meet the evaluation criteria so are not reported here. The emission estimates for flight segments that did not meet crtieria might be available upon request to AEP.RSD-AWS-AirshedSciences@gov.ab.ca.

Below is a list of columns included in the files
- Date (UTC)
- Site – Name of industrial facility
- Flight Type – Perimeter, Mine, Tailings Pond, or Plant
- Aircraft - Aircraft identifier (N617DH or N2132X)
- Start Time (UTC)
- End Time (UTC)
- Start Time (EPOCH) - seconds since midnight Jan 1 1970 (time zone is UTC)
- End Time (EPOCH) - seconds since midnight Jan 1 1970 (time zone is UTC)
- CO2 Emission (kg/hr) 
- Uncertainty (kg/hr) – uncertainty in CO2 emissions estimates
- CH4 Emission (kg/hr) 
- Uncertainty (kg/hr) – uncertainty in CH4 emissions estimates

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Flask Data

Flask sample data includes speciated information on greenhouse gases (GHG), volatile organic compounds (VOC), and reduced sulphur compounds (RSC) at selected locations along the flight paths. The flask samples were collected using sampling systems from NOAA in 2017 and UC Irvine in 2018 onboard the aircrafts. The 2017 flask samples were analyzed using a Gas Chromatograph with an Electron Capture Detector (GC-ECD) and Gas Chromatograph-Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) by NOAA while the 2018 flask data using Gas Chromatograph with a Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID), GC-ECD and GC-MS by UC Irvine. GHGs were the main target compounds for the 2017 data analysis while the 2018 data focused on VOCs. The data and metadata from the labs can be found in the MS Excel files named as "Flask samples data (2017 flights).xlsx" and "Flask samples data (2018 flights).xlsx" for 2017 and 2018, respectively.

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References

Conley, S., Faloona, I., Mehrotra, S., Suard, M., Lenschow, D. H., Sweeney, C., Herndon, S., Schwietzke, S., Pétron, G., Pifer, J., Kort, E. A., and Schnell, R.: Application of Gauss's theorem to quantify localized surface emissions from airborne measurements of wind and trace gases, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 10, 3345-3358, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-3345-2017, 2017.