NASA OCO-2 Project: Gridded Daily and Monthly Carbon Dioxide Assimilation

NASA's OCO-2 mission provides high-quality space-based retrievals of atmospheric carbon dioxide (XCO2). This dataset uses a data assimilation technique to synthesize satellite observations with GEOS model simulations, producing gap-filled global gridded estimates. The data is produced by NASA's Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) using the GEOS CoDAS system.

Use Cases

• Analyzing global carbon dioxide distribution patterns based on assimilated satellite data.
• Studying atmospheric transport and carbon cycle dynamics based on model-synthesized estimates.
• Validating and improving climate model simulations based on high-quality XCO2 retrievals.
• Monitoring regional and seasonal variations in CO2 concentrations based on gap-filled global grids.

Strengths

• Based on the highest quality space-based XCO2 retrievals to date from the OCO-2 mission.
• Uses a sophisticated data assimilation method (3D-Var) that incorporates scientific understanding of carbon cycle and atmospheric transport.
• Addresses coverage gaps inherent in raw satellite data through model synthesis.
• Produced by NASA's authoritative Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NASA OCO-2 mission and Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO).

Collection Method

Data assimilation (state estimation) synthesizing OCO-2 L2 retrievals with GEOS model simulations every 6 hours.

Time Range

Temporal coverage is not specified in the provided input.

Freshness

Update frequency is unknown.

Geography

Global coverage.