AIRS/Aqua L3 Daily Atmospheric Soundings on a 1-Degree Global Grid

NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) aboard the Aqua satellite provides daily global maps of atmospheric properties. The Level 3 product averages and bins observations into 1-degree by 1-degree grid cells, covering 24-hour periods for ascending and descending orbits. It includes standard retrieval means, standard deviations, and input counts for over 20 thermodynamic parameters and trace gases.

Use Cases

• Modeling global atmospheric temperature and water vapor profiles based on the listed thermodynamic parameters.
• Tracking trace gas concentrations like carbon monoxide, methane, and ozone from the vertical profile data.
• Analyzing daily cloud properties, including amount, height, and top temperature, for climate studies.
• Studying land and sea surface skin temperature variations across a global 1-degree grid.
• Generating custom multi-day composite maps using the provided per-bin count data.

Strengths

• Data is produced by NASA, a highly authoritative source for Earth observation.
• Provides three data layers per parameter: mean, standard deviation, and count per 1x1 degree grid cell.
• Covers a comprehensive suite of over 20 atmospheric parameters, from temperature to trace gases.
• Gridding scheme is consistent with the historical TOVS Pathfinder Level 3 products.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The daily products contain gores (data gaps) between satellite paths with no coverage.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML tasks.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing from the AIRS/AMSU instruments aboard the EOS Aqua platform.

Time Range

Daily coverage from the instrument's operational start date.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 06:11:11.324194; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global coverage from -90.0 to +90.0 degrees latitude and -180.0 to +180.0 degrees longitude.