MODIS Aqua Atmospheric Temperature and Moisture Profiles at 5km Resolution

30 gridded parameters describe atmospheric stability, temperature and moisture profiles, total water vapor, and total ozone from the MODIS/Aqua satellite. Data is produced at a 5-kilometer pixel resolution for both day and night, with each file covering a five-minute interval and a total daily volume of approximately 2 GB. The principal investigator for this Level-2 product is MODIS scientist Dr. Paul Menzel.

Use Cases

• Analyze vertical atmospheric structure using the 20-level pressure grid for Temperature Profiles and Dew Point Temperature Profiles.
• Model total atmospheric water vapor content using the Total Column Precipitable Water Vapor - IR Retrieval parameter.
• Assess atmospheric stability for weather forecasting using indices like Total Totals, Lifted Index, and K-index.
• Retrieve total ozone burden for atmospheric chemistry studies from the 9.6 micron thermal band data.
• Correlate surface conditions with atmospheric data using Surface Pressure, Skin Temperature, and Surface Elevation fields.

Strengths

• Provides 30 distinct atmospheric parameters per observation.
• Data has a high spatial resolution of 5 x 5 kilometers at nadir.
• Covers both daytime and nighttime conditions for diurnal cycle analysis.

Limitations

• Retrievals require at least 9 cloud-free fields of view, limiting data in persistently cloudy regions.
• Data is stored in HDF-EOS format, which requires specialized libraries for access and processing.
• The description does not specify the temporal coverage or date range for the archived data.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earthdata (MODIS/Aqua satellite instrument)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing retrievals from MODIS infrared bands.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Near Real-Time (NRT)

Geography

Global swath coverage from the Aqua satellite orbit.