MERRA-2 M2TMNXCHM: Monthly Mean Carbon Monoxide and Ozone Diagnostics

NASA's MERRA-2 reanalysis provides assimilated monthly mean diagnostics for carbon monoxide and ozone from 1980 to the present. The data includes column burdens, emissions, chemical production, and surface concentrations for carbon monoxide, as well as total column ozone. Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the GEOS model, this collection supports atmospheric research with a latency of approximately three weeks.

Use Cases

• Modeling global carbon monoxide transport and sources based on assimilated emission and chemical production diagnostics.
• Analyzing trends in total column ozone for atmospheric chemistry studies.
• Studying the variance of atmospheric parameters for climate variability research.
• Validating satellite-derived air quality measurements against assimilated model data.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, an authoritative source.
• Includes variance diagnostics for certain parameters, offering insights into variability.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is provided in specialized formats like BIN and ISO, which may require specific tools for processing.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Time Range

1980-present

Freshness

Updated monthly with a latency of ~3 weeks after the end of a month.

Geography

Global, 0.625 x 0.5 degree resolution