HIRMLS3IWC: Monthly Ice Water Content from Satellite Limb Sounders

HIRMLS3IWC is a joint monthly gridded product for ice water content from the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder and Microwave Limb Sounder instruments. The dataset covers the HIRDLS mission period from February 2005 to December 2007, with near-global spatial coverage from -80 to +90 degrees latitude. It was produced by NASA and is stored in HDF-EOS5 format.

Use Cases

• Analyze global distribution of ice water content based on monthly gridded data.
• Compare cloud microphysics measurements from two different satellite instruments (HIRDLS and MLS).
• Study vertical profiles of clouds based on data fields like cloud top pressure and volume density.
• Investigate temporal trends in atmospheric ice content over the 2005-2007 period.

Strengths

• Combines data from two satellite instruments (HIRDLS v7 and MLS v3.3) for cross-validation.
• Provides vertical resolution details: 1.5 km for HIRDLS and 3 km for MLS.
• Includes multiple data fields per grid, such as IWC values, volume density, and cloud top pressure.

Limitations

• Time range is limited to the HIRDLS mission from February 2005 to December 2007.
• Vertical range is constrained to 215 to 82 hPa pressure levels.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Data from the HIRDLS and MLS satellite instruments processed into a monthly gridded product.

Time Range

February 1, 2005 through December 31, 2007

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 01:29:06.556765; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Near-global (-80 to +90 degrees latitude)