MOPITT Beta V109: Daily Gridded Tropospheric Carbon Monoxide

MOPITT, launched aboard NASA's Terra spacecraft on December 18, 1999, provides a long-term record of atmospheric carbon monoxide from a sun-synchronous polar orbit. This dataset contains unvalidated beta products of daily gridded means for CO profiles and total columns, derived from thermal infrared radiances and subject to recalibration. The Level 3 files include gridded averaging kernels, which are essential for quantifying the sensitivity of the retrievals.

Use Cases

• Tracking global and regional trends in atmospheric carbon monoxide based on daily gridded means.
• Assessing retrieval sensitivity and performing proper data assimilation using the included gridded averaging kernels.
• Validating and calibrating chemical transport models with satellite-derived CO profile and total column data.

Strengths

• Provides a continuous record from a satellite instrument launched in 1999, offering over two decades of potential data.
• Includes gridded averaging kernels, a critical component for accurate scientific use of the retrievals.
• Data collection for this version is explicitly stated as ongoing.

Limitations

• Dataset is an unvalidated beta product subject to recalibration, limiting its use for definitive conclusions.
• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and specific file size are unavailable across all platforms.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' date (2026-04-09 vs. 2025-02-01), creating uncertainty about freshness.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); instrument funded by the Canadian Space Agency.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the MOPITT instrument aboard the Terra spacecraft.

Time Range

Data collection ongoing; instrument launched December 18, 1999.

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:48:33.038086 (from datagov, but conflicting with nasa_earthdata date)

Geography

Global coverage from a sun-synchronous polar orbit.