MOPITT V009: Satellite-Derived Carbon Monoxide Profiles and Total Columns

NASA's Terra satellite carries the MOPITT instrument, which collects geo-located carbon monoxide (CO) profiles and total column amounts. The dataset includes ancillary surface and cloud data, with an estimated error for each retrieval, and collection began after the launch on December 18, 1999. Data collection for this version 9 product is ongoing.

Use Cases

• Modeling global tropospheric carbon monoxide transport based on retrieved CO profiles.
• Analyzing long-term trends in atmospheric pollution based on time-series data from 1999 onward.
• Studying correlations between surface properties, cloud conditions, and CO concentrations based on included ancillary data.
• Validating atmospheric chemistry models based on satellite-derived CO total column amounts with error estimates.

Strengths

• Includes an estimated error for each CO retrieval, providing uncertainty quantification.
• Data collection is ongoing, offering potential for time-series analysis from December 18, 1999.
• Contains ancillary data on surface properties and cloud conditions at retrieval locations.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment for large-scale ML tasks.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), with instrument construction funded by the Canadian Space Agency.

Collection Method

Retrieved from Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument aboard the Terra satellite.

Time Range

From December 18, 1999, with ongoing collection.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 23:32:53.724929; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Global, from a sun-synchronous polar orbit.