MERRA-2: Hourly Global Aerosol Diagnostics from NASA

MERRA-2 tavg1_2d_aer_Nx is an hourly time-averaged global atmospheric reanalysis dataset produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office. It provides assimilated aerosol diagnostics, including column mass density of black carbon, dust, sea salt, sulfate, and organic carbon, as well as aerosol optical thickness. The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present, with a latency of approximately three weeks.

Use Cases

• Modeling global aerosol transport and deposition based on column mass density data.
• Analyzing trends in particulate matter (PM1.0, PM2.5, PM10) concentrations over time.
• Studying the impact of specific aerosol components (e.g., black carbon, sulfate) on atmospheric chemistry.
• Validating satellite-derived aerosol optical thickness measurements.
• Assessing long-term air quality and public health impacts from atmospheric particulates.

Strengths

• Provides continuous hourly data from 1980 to the present.
• Includes specific diagnostics for five aerosol components (black carbon, dust, sea salt, sulfate, organic carbon).
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model version 5.12.4.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13; data has a latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month.

Geography

Global