MERRA-2 M2T1NXADG: Hourly Aerosol Diagnostics from NASA Reanalysis

MERRA-2 provides hourly time-averaged assimilated aerosol diagnostics from 1980 to the present, with a latency of about 3 weeks after each month. The data includes fields such as dry and wet deposition of aerosol components, dust emission and sedimentation for size bins, and organic carbon convective scavenging. This global atmospheric reanalysis is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS version 5.12.4 model.

Use Cases

• Modeling aerosol deposition and transport based on dry and wet deposition diagnostics.
• Analyzing dust emission patterns based on dust emission and sedimentation fields for different size bins.
• Studying aerosol removal processes based on organic carbon convective scavenging data.
• Tracking long-term aerosol trends based on hourly data spanning from 1980 to present.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Provides hourly resolution with time stamps at central hourly intervals (e.g., 00:30 UTC).
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, an authoritative source.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data reprocessing has occurred, and reprocessed filenames differ from original files, which could cause confusion.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Global Modeling and Assimilation Office

Collection Method

Assimilated global atmospheric reanalysis using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model (GEOS) version 5.12.4.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Data has a latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month; last metadata update was 2026-03-13.

Geography

Global, with a grid resolution of 0.625 x 0.5 degree