OCO-2: Satellite-Based Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Measurements

NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) Level 2 Standard product provides column-averaged atmospheric carbon dioxide (XCO2) dry air mole fraction retrievals. The data are derived from high-resolution spectrometer measurements of reflected sunlight in specific near-infrared and oxygen A-band wavelengths. This dataset, Version 11.2r, supersedes all older versions and is the output of a physical model retrieval algorithm.

Use Cases

• Tracking regional and global carbon dioxide fluxes based on column-averaged XCO2 retrievals.
• Validating and improving atmospheric transport models using globally distributed, space-based measurements.
• Assessing the impact of emission policies by analyzing time-series trends in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
• Studying seasonal and interannual variability of carbon dioxide using the geolocated, time-series data.

Strengths

• Data is from a dedicated NASA satellite mission (OCO-2) designed for high-precision CO2 measurements.
• The dataset represents the current, authoritative version (11.2r), superseding all prior releases.
• Measurements are derived from three coincident, high-resolution spectrometers, suggesting detailed spectral data.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing or inconsistent across platforms: column names, row counts, and exact data size are unknown.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms for reuse.
• Documentation and ancillary file formats (BIN, PDF, etc.) are listed, but their content and accessibility are not described.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Retrievals from a physical model algorithm applied to spectra collected by the OCO-2 satellite instrument.

Time Range

null

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04 09 23:21:31.835150 according to two platforms.

Geography

Global, from satellite observations.