AIRS Aqua Satellite Atmospheric Profiles with 100 Pressure Levels

AIRS/Aqua L2 Support Retrieval data provides high-resolution atmospheric profiles from the AIRS grating spectrometer aboard the EOS Aqua satellite. The dataset includes 100 pressure levels between 1100 and 0.016 mb, intermediate outputs like microwave-only retrievals, and research products such as trace gas abundances. It is produced by the GES DISC organization, with granules covering 6 minutes of data collected 240 times per day.

Use Cases

• Generating forward radiance models using the 100-level pressure profiles.
• Examining research products like the abundance of trace gases.
• Analyzing intermediate retrieval outputs, such as microwave-only retrievals.
• Studying atmospheric conditions with a horizontal resolution of 50 km.
• Conducting climate research using visible, infrared, and microwave sensor data from the AIRS+AMSU+HSB group.

Strengths

• Provides high vertical resolution with 100 pressure levels between 1100 and 0.016 mb.
• Includes detailed quality assessment information and intermediate outputs.
• Offers consistent daily coverage with 240 granules per day.

Limitations

• Multiple sources list the last update date as 2016-09-25, but one source lists 2026-03-13, indicating a conflict in freshness.
• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are unknown across all platforms.
• One platform lists the license as 'other-license-specified', while others list it as unknown or None.

Provenance

Source

GES_DISC

Collection Method

Data collected by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) grating spectrometer aboard the EOS Aqua satellite, in combination with AMSU and HSB sensors.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-13 18:40:59.590745

Geography

Global coverage from a polar-orbiting platform with a horizontal resolution of 50 km.