OCO-3: Orbiting Carbon Observatory Level 2 XCO2 Retrievals

Version 10r, the current version as of April 2026, supersedes all older releases. The dataset contains Level 2 geolocated retrievals of the column-averaged dry-air mole fraction of carbon dioxide (XCO2) from the OCO-3 instrument, which was deployed to the International Space Station in May 2019. It is produced by three high-resolution spectrometers measuring reflected sunlight in specific near-infrared and oxygen A-band wavelengths to characterize processes controlling atmospheric CO2 buildup.

Use Cases

• Mapping global and regional sources and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide based on space-based XCO2 measurements.
• Validating and improving climate models using precise, space-based CO2 concentration data.
• Screening for cloud contamination in satellite data using the Oxygen-A Band cloud screening algorithm.
• Estimating surface pressure and albedo via the fast Bayesian ABO2 retrieval algorithm applied to O2 A-band spectra.

Strengths

• Data is from a NASA mission specifically designed for high-precision, space-based atmospheric CO2 measurement.
• The instrument uses three independently calibrated, high-resolution spectrometers for coincident measurements.
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA Earthdata signals importance and official curation.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: no column names, row count, or file size are provided in the input.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further details.
• The description is highly technical and repetitive across platforms, suggesting sparse user-oriented documentation.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Collected by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3 (OCO-3) instrument on the International Space Station using three high-resolution spectrometers.

Time Range

Collection began after instrument deployment in May 2019; specific end date not provided.

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-09 according to Data.gov.

Geography

Global coverage from the International Space Station's orbit.