OMTO3G: Daily Global Gridded Ozone and Atmospheric Data

OMI/Aura satellite data provides a daily global snapshot of atmospheric conditions gridded at a 0.25x0.25 degree resolution. This Level-2G product bins raw pixel-level observations without averaging, preserving original values for total column ozone, UV aerosol index, cloud properties, and viewing geometry. Scientists can apply custom filtering to these gridded files, stored in HDF-EOS5 format with a maximum size of about 150 MB per daily file.

Use Cases

• Monitoring stratospheric ozone depletion and recovery based on daily total column ozone measurements.
• Tracking atmospheric pollution and volcanic ash plumes using the included UV aerosol index.
• Analyzing cloud-climate interactions from the concurrent cloud fraction and cloud pressure data.
• Correcting for surface reflectance in satellite retrievals using terrain height and solar/viewing angles.
• Creating custom filtered global maps for specific research questions using the unbinned grid cell data.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent daily global grid at a 0.25x0.25 degree spatial resolution.
• Contains multiple atmospheric parameters beyond ozone, including aerosol index, cloud data, and geometry.
• Data is preserved without averaging in grid cells, allowing for flexible post-processing by users.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and curation.

Limitations

• Column names and specific data schema are not provided in any source description.
• Metadata for size, row count, and author is inconsistent or missing across platforms.
• The 'last updated' date of 2026-04-09 appears to be a placeholder or future date, indicating potential metadata freshness issues.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing from the OMI instrument on NASA's Aura spacecraft, processed with the enhanced TOMS version-8 algorithm using radiance at 317.5 and 331.2 nm.

Time Range

Daily coverage.

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:17:20.395724

Geography

Global.