NASA TOVS Pathfinder Project

Multiple gridded atmospheric products derived from Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) instruments on several platforms. The data includes lower troposphere temperature (MSULTT), upper troposphere temperature (MSUUTT), lower stratosphere temperature (MSULST), and ocean precipitation (MSUOP) estimates, processed using algorithms based on Spencer and Christy (1990). The dataset is hosted on AWS Open Data and is licensed under CC-BY-4.0.

Use Cases

• Modeling lower tropospheric temperature trends based on the MSU channel 2 and 3 combination.
• Analyzing upper tropospheric temperature variations based on the MSU channel 3 and 4 combination.
• Studying lower stratosphere temperature changes based on MSU channel 4 data.
• Estimating oceanic precipitation based on warming thresholds in MSU channel 1.
• Applying limb corrections for satellite data based on latitude, longitude, month, and scan angle.

Strengths

• Includes four distinct atmospheric products (MSULTT, MSUUTT, MSULST, MSUOP) for multi-layer analysis.
• Derived using a peer-reviewed algorithm (Spencer and Christy, 1990) with a specified limb correction model (LIMB 93).
• Data is gridded and includes a described method for handling polar regions north/south of 66.7 degrees.

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 TOVS Pathfinder Project, likely involving data from multiple satellite platforms.

Collection Method

Derived from Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) instrument measurements using specified algorithms and corrections.

Time Range

null

Freshness

null

Geography

Global, with a described weighted assignment method for data north/south of 66.7 degrees latitude.