MERRA-2 M2T1NXCHM: Hourly Carbon Monoxide and Ozone Diagnostics

MERRA-2 M2T1NXCHM is an hourly time-averaged 2-dimensional data collection of assimilated carbon monoxide and ozone diagnostics. The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present and is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model version 5.12.4. Data is timestamped with the central time of each hour and has a latency of approximately three weeks after the end of a month.

Use Cases

• Modeling global carbon monoxide column burden based on assimilated diagnostics.
• Analyzing hourly chemical production of ozone based on total column ozone data.
• Tracking surface concentration of carbon monoxide over time for emission studies.
• Studying atmospheric chemistry trends from 1980 to present based on the time series.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range from 1980 to present.
• Hourly time resolution with data stamped at the central time of each hour.
• Produced by NASA GMAO using the GEOS 5.12.4 model, indicating a standardized source.

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

Collection Method

Assimilated global atmospheric reanalysis produced by NASA GMAO using the GEOS model.

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

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

Geography

Global, with a 0.625 x 0.5 degree spatial resolution.