OMAERUV: Aerosol Measurements from the Aura Satellite

OMAERUV is a Level-2 near-UV aerosol data product from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard NASA's Aura satellite. It provides daily global measurements of aerosol properties, including absorption and extinction optical depths and single scattering albedo at 354, 388, and 500 nm. The data is stored in HDF-EOS5 format, with each file covering the sunlit portion of one orbit (~53 minutes).

Use Cases

• Tracking biomass burning and industrial aerosol plumes based on Aerosol Index and optical depth parameters.
• Analyzing global aerosol absorption trends using Single Scattering Albedo measurements at three wavelengths.
• Validating atmospheric models with daily, orbit-level geolocated data from a 2600 km viewing swath.
• Studying long-term changes in US EPA criteria pollutants like aerosols from the continuous record since 2004.

Strengths

• Provides a long-term, daily global record from a satellite launched in July 2004.
• Offers specific aerosol measurements at three wavelengths (354, 388, 500 nm) and a high spatial resolution of 13x24 km per observation.
• Data is publicly accessible from NASA's GES DISC and has been reprocessed with an enhanced algorithm as of April 2012.

Limitations

• Column names and exact data structure are not provided in the available metadata.
• The 'last updated' date of 2026-04-09 on Data.gov appears to be a future date, indicating a potential metadata error.
• Platforms disagree on tags and some metadata fields, suggesting inconsistent curation.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC); Principal Investigator Dr. Omar Torres (GSFC/NASA).

Collection Method

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

Time Range

2004 (satellite launch) to present, with reprocessed data released in April 2012.

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:16:42.406315 (Note: This is a future date and may be an error)

Geography

Global coverage from the Aura satellite's 14 orbits per day.