AIRS/Aqua L1B: Infrared Radiances for Atmospheric Sounding

NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) aboard the Aqua satellite provides calibrated infrared radiances from 2378 spectral channels between 3.74 and 15.4 microns. The Level 1B dataset delivers geolocated radiance measurements in milliWatts/m^2/cm^-1/steradian, organized into 6-minute granules. These data are co-aligned with microwave sounders to support atmospheric profiling and Earth system science.

Use Cases

• Atmospheric temperature and humidity profile retrieval based on infrared radiance spectra.
• Cloud property and top height determination using multi-channel infrared observations.
• Trace gas concentration studies (e.g., ozone, carbon dioxide) leveraging the high spectral resolution.
• Validation and calibration of climate and weather models with global satellite observations.
• Investigating the impact of spacecraft thermal events on instrument calibration, referencing the documented spectral shift.

Strengths

• Provides high-resolution spectral data from 2378 infrared channels.
• Features global coverage from a polar-orbiting platform, enabling time-series analysis.
• Includes detailed calibration warnings and mitigation advice for a known instrument shift event.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all sources.
• Conflicting license information is reported (CC-BY-4.0 vs. other-license-specified).
• The dataset carries a documented calibration artifact from a 2021 spacecraft maneuver affecting brightness temperatures in some channels.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data collected by the AIRS grating spectrometer aboard the EOS Aqua satellite.

Freshness

2026-03-13 (from datagov platform)

Geography

Global