MERRA-2 M2TUNXADG: Monthly Diurnal Aerosol Diagnostics

MERRA-2 M2TUNXADG is a time-averaged 2-dimensional monthly diurnal means data collection for aerosol diagnostics. The dataset covers the period from 1980 to the present and is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office using the Goddard Earth Observing System Model version 5.12.4. It contains assimilated aerosol diagnostics such as dry and wet deposition, dust emission and sedimentation, and organic carbon convective scavenging.

Use Cases

• Modeling global aerosol transport based on assimilated aerosol diagnostics.
• Analyzing dust emission and sedimentation patterns for each sized bin.
• Studying organic carbon convective scavenging processes.
• Investigating dry and wet deposition rates of aerosol components.
• Developing climate reanalysis models using time-averaged diurnal means.

Strengths

• Data covers a long temporal range from 1980 to the present.
• Produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, an authoritative source.
• Provides hourly time-stamped monthly means (e.g., 00:30, 01:30 UTC).
• Includes specific aerosol diagnostics like dust emission for sized bins.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Latency of approximately 3 weeks after the end of a month may affect real-time analysis.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

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, with a 0.625 x 0.5 degree spatial resolution.