OCO-2: Satellite-Based Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Retrievals

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission provides Level 2 geolocated data for atmospheric carbon dioxide (XCO2) concentrations and related diagnostic parameters. The dataset is derived from three high-resolution spectrometers measuring reflected sunlight at specific near-infrared wavelengths for CO2 and molecular oxygen. This Version 11r represents a retrospective processing, where calibration uses the full data timeseries to achieve slightly higher quality.

Use Cases

• Quantifying regional carbon fluxes based on XCO2 retrieval results and algorithm diagnostics.
• Analyzing aerosol influences on CO2 measurements using included aerosol optical depth data.
• Studying surface-atmosphere interactions using surface type and albedo information.
• Assessing retrieval uncertainty for model assimilation using XCO2 uncertainties and averaging kernel data.
• Investigating solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence as a proxy for vegetation productivity.

Strengths

• Represents the first NASA mission specifically designed for space-based atmospheric CO2 measurements with required precision and coverage.
• Utilizes retrospective processing (Version 11r), which calibrates using the full data timeseries for expected higher quality.
• Provides coincident multi-spectral measurements from three high-resolution spectrometers for robust retrieval.

Limitations

• Key metadata is missing: specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided in any source.
• Sources conflict on the 'last updated' date, reporting both 2024-04-01 and 2026-04-09.
• Documentation gaps exist regarding the exact license terms, only specified as 'other-license-specified'.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the OCO-2 spacecraft's LEOStar-2 platform and a single instrument with three spectrometers.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:21:45.715122

Geography

Global