ML3DBN2O: Daily Binned Nitrous Oxide Mixing Ratios from Aura Satellite

Near-global (-82 to +82 degrees latitude) daily binned measurements of nitrous oxide (N2O) mixing ratios derived from the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS). The data version is 5.1, with spatial resolution of 4° latitude by 5° longitude and a recommended vertical range from 68.1 to 0.464 hPa. It is produced by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and archived in netCDF4 format.

Use Cases

• Modeling stratospheric transport and mixing based on N2O as a tracer.
• Analyzing long-term trends in nitrous oxide concentrations based on daily binned data.
• Studying polar vortex dynamics based on vortex average vs potential temperature groups.
• Creating zonal mean climatologies based on latitude vs pressure zonal mean groups.

Strengths

• Data is binned on multiple vertical grids (pressure, potential temperature) with six distinct group objects per file.
• Each data group includes statistical fields such as average, min, max, standard deviation, and RMS.
• Spatial coverage is near-global from -82 to +82 degrees latitude.
• Vertical resolution is between 4 and 6 km over a range from 68.1 to 0.464 hPa.

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

Derived from radiances measured by the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) 640 GHz and 190 GHz radiometers.

Time Range

Daily data; specific start and end dates are not provided in the description.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-13 00:32:47.625806; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Near-global coverage from -82 to +82 degrees latitude.