AIRS Aqua Atmospheric Profiles Quantized Over 5-Day Pentads

AIRS/Aqua L3 quantization products provide statistical summaries of atmospheric profiles derived from Level-2 satellite retrievals. NASA's GES DISC distributes this dataset, which compresses original swath data into 5-day pentads over 5-degree grid cells. The geophysical parameters include air temperature and water vapor profiles across 11 levels, along with cloud fraction.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the distribution of air temperature across 11 atmospheric levels within 5-degree grid cells.
• Studying the vertical profile and variability of water vapor over five-day periods.
• Investigating the relationship between cloud fraction distribution and other atmospheric parameters.
• Examining multivariate atmospheric state features preserved in the compressed quantization product.
• Tracking changes in atmospheric profiles across global 5x5 degree spatial bins over time.

Strengths

• The dataset preserves multivariate distributional features from the original Level-2 swath data, offering more detail than simple means.
• Data is structured into regular 5-day pentads starting on specific calendar days, providing a consistent temporal framework.
• Parameters are summarized over a global grid with a 5-degree spatial resolution, offering broad coverage.
• It combines measurements from three sensors: AIRS, AMSU, and HSB, for a multi-spectral atmospheric sounding.

Limitations

• Specific row count, total size, and complete column list are unknown across all platforms.
• Platforms disagree on license: one lists 'other-license-specified' while others list no license.
• The last updated date shows a significant conflict: one source lists 2003-02-06, while another lists 2026-03-13, suggesting potential metadata errors.

Provenance

Source

GES_DISC

Collection Method

Derived from Level-2 standard retrieval products of the AIRS/AMSU/HSB sensor suite aboard the EOS Aqua satellite.

Freshness

2026-03-13 18:37:38.077160

Geography

Global coverage with 5-degree x 5-degree grid cells.