OMOCNUV: Hyperspectral UV Irradiance and Underwater Attenuation from Aura Satellite

Collection 4 Aura OMI data provides hyperspectral surface and underwater UV irradiance measurements from 290 to 399 nm. Each Level-2 netCDF file contains approximately 53 minutes of data from the sunlit portion of a satellite orbit, with about 14 such files generated daily. The dataset includes planar and scalar irradiances and diffuse attenuation coefficients over water, supporting analysis of UV penetration and its environmental impacts.

Use Cases

• Modeling UV exposure for marine ecosystems based on hyperspectral irradiance data.
• Studying water clarity and optical properties using diffuse attenuation coefficients.
• Validating atmospheric radiative transfer models with orbital swath measurements.
• Assessing long-term trends in surface UV radiation from a continuous satellite record.

Strengths

• Provides hyperspectral UV data across 290-399 nm, enabling detailed wavelength-specific analysis.
• Offers high temporal resolution with approximately 14 orbital data files generated per day.
• Data is structured in a standard scientific format (netCDF 4), facilitating interoperability.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and detailed spatial resolution are not provided in the available descriptions.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.
• Data granularity is at the orbital swath level (~13x24km), which may be coarse for some localized studies.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC).

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Aura spacecraft's Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI).

Freshness

Last updated on 2026-04-09 according to datagov entries.

Geography

Global coverage from satellite orbits.