Aqua AIRS Monthly Atmospheric Support Product at 1-Degree Resolution

AIRS L3 monthly support product provides global atmospheric data at a 1x1 degree spatial resolution. The dataset is generated by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA's Aqua satellite and contains fields that are not fully validated, including inputs and intermediary values. It is hosted by the GES DISC and was last listed on a government portal in March 2026.

Use Cases

• Analyzing monthly global temperature and humidity profiles from infrared and microwave sounder data.
• Validating climate models using gridded, satellite-derived atmospheric state variables.
• Studying atmospheric processes with intermediate retrieval fields not available in standard validated products.

Strengths

• Data originates from the AIRS instrument, a high-resolution grating spectrometer (R=1200) on a major NASA satellite platform.
• Provides global coverage with a consistent 1x1 degree gridded format for temporal analysis.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov indicates established use and importance for the scientific community.

Limitations

• Contains fields that are not fully validated, and values from failed retrievals may be included due to lack of quality control.
• Critical metadata such as row count, column names, and exact size are unavailable across all sources.
• Conflicting license information exists between platforms (unknown vs. other-license-specified).

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite observations from the AIRS instrument on the Aqua platform, processed into Level 3 monthly gridded support products.

Freshness

2026-03-13 17:51:01.642711

Geography

Global