OCO-3: NASA Satellite Raw Spectrometry Data for Atmospheric CO2

NASA's OCO-3 Level 1A dataset provides depacketized raw data from three high-resolution spectrometers aboard the LEOStar-2 spacecraft. This data is the input for Level 1B processing, containing calibrated engineering data and 1016 spectral elements per band for near-infrared CO2 and molecular oxygen measurements. It supports the characterization of processes controlling atmospheric carbon dioxide buildup.

Use Cases

• Calibrating Level 1B retrieval algorithms based on raw spectrometer data numbers (DN).
• Analyzing spectral signatures of CO2 at 1.61 and 2.06 micrometers for atmospheric concentration studies.
• Validating instrument performance using coincident measurements from three independent spectrometers.
• Researching carbon source and sink processes with space-based, single-pixel mode observations.

Strengths

• Data is from a dedicated NASA mission (OCO-3) designed for high-precision atmospheric CO2 measurement.
• Each of the three spectrometer bands provides 1016 spectral elements, suggesting high spectral resolution.
• Dataset is maintained as Version 11, superseding older versions, indicating ongoing curation.

Limitations

• Critical metadata like row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable across all platforms.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.
• Documentation appears reliant on ancillary files (PDF, HTML) rather than embedded metadata.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Collected by the OCO-3 instrument's three spectrometers in Single-pixel Mode from the LEOStar-2 spacecraft.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:21:11.314625

Geography

Global, from satellite orbit.