AIRS Aqua Visible/Near Infrared Radiances for Cloud Detection

AIRS/Aqua L1B Visible/Near Infrared radiances provide calibrated, geolocated measurements in four spectral channels from 0.4 to 1.0 micrometers. Data is collected by the AIRS grating spectrometer aboard NASA's EOS Aqua satellite, organized into daily granules of 6-minute daytime segments. The dataset is hosted by NASA's GES DISC, with a listed update as recent as March 2026.

Use Cases

• Detecting cloud contamination and surface inhomogeneities within infrared sensor footprints using high-resolution VIS/NIR radiances.
• Cross-calibrating visible and infrared channels by comparing 720 across-track VIS/NIR footprints with 90 across-track infrared footprints.
• Analyzing diurnal atmospheric processes using daytime-only granules with 6-minute temporal resolution.
• Studying spectral reflectance properties of Earth's surface and atmosphere across four distinct visible/near-infrared channels.

Strengths

• Provides high spatial resolution with 9 along-track and 720 across-track footprints per scan, specifically designed for inhomogeneity detection.
• Offers calibrated radiances in four spectral channels (0.4-1.0 um) with a spectrometer resolution (R) of 1200.
• Data is produced from a well-established NASA EOS mission (Aqua) and is available across multiple government platforms.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing from all sources: exact row count, file size, column names, and precise temporal coverage are unknown.
• VIS/NIR data is only produced during daytime, resulting in fewer granules than the full 240 per day available for other AIRS products.
• License information is conflicting: one source lists 'other-license-specified' while others report it as unknown.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).

Collection Method

Data gathered by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) grating spectrometer aboard the EOS Aqua polar-orbiting satellite.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-13 18:41:22.019701

Geography

Global coverage from the Aqua satellite's polar orbit.