NASA SAGE III-ISS Project: Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Profiles from ISS

NASA's SAGE III instrument on the International Space Station provides monthly vertical profiles of atmospheric components using solar occultation. Launched on February 19, 2017, it monitors ozone, aerosols, nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen trioxide, and water vapor in the stratosphere and mesosphere. This data has historically informed World Meteorological Organization assessments of ozone depletion.

Use Cases

• Monitoring long-term ozone depletion trends based on ozone vertical profiles.
• Studying atmospheric aerosol loading and its climate impact based on aerosol data.
• Analyzing variability of trace gases like nitrogen dioxide and water vapor in the upper atmosphere.
• Validating and improving global climate models based on occultation-derived species profiles.

Strengths

• Data is produced by a NASA instrument launched in 2017, providing a modern continuation of a long-term monitoring project.
• The description specifies the instrument uses the solar occultation technique, a recognized method for precise atmospheric profiling.
• Includes a specific data quality notice advising against using three affected solar events from March 2024, indicating active curation.

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 SAGE III-ISS Project

Collection Method

Data collected via solar occultation by the SAGE III instrument externally mounted on the International Space Station.

Time Range

Data collection began after the instrument's launch on February 19, 2017; specific end date is unknown.

Freshness

Monthly data product; specific last update date is unknown.

Geography

Global coverage, from the instrument's orbit on the ISS.