AIRS Satellite Tropospheric Carbon Dioxide Retrieval Support Data

Satellite-derived support products provide vertical profiles of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other trace gases. Data originates from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA's Aqua satellite, processed by the GES DISC. The dataset includes high-resolution profiles across 100 pressure levels and quality assessment information.

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical distribution of tropospheric CO2 using the 100-level pressure profiles.
• Assessing spatial coherence of CO2 retrievals using the 2 ppm RMS quality assurance metric.
• Studying trace gas abundance variations over time from the satellite's time-series observations.
• Comparing microwave-only retrieval intermediate outputs with combined infrared retrieval products.
• Mapping atmospheric conditions over 90 km x 90 km nadir areas using the 2x2 array averaged solutions.

Strengths

• Profiles offer high vertical resolution with 100 distinct pressure levels between 1100 and 0.016 mb.
• Retrievals include a spatial coherence quality assurance test requiring agreement within 2 ppm RMS.
• Data is produced by a calibrated grating spectrometer (R=1200) on a dedicated Earth observation platform.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and ongoing use.

Limitations

• Source platforms disagree on the last update date: NASA Earthdata lists 2017-03-01, while Data.gov lists 2026-03-13.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and dataset size are unknown across all sources.
• The license is unspecified on NASA Earthdata and listed as 'other-license-specified' on Data.gov.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Retrieved from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard the EOS Aqua satellite, using the Vanishing Partial Derivative algorithm.

Freshness

2026-03-13 19:07:33.850540

Geography

Global coverage from a polar-orbiting satellite platform.