OMI Satellite Daily Global Sulfur Dioxide Measurements

OMI/Aura Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) Total Column data provides near-daily global monitoring of atmospheric SO2 from volcanic eruptions and pollution sources. The Level-2 OMSO2 product contains three retrieved SO2 vertical column values per pixel, along with quality flags and geolocation information, generated by NASA/UMBC scientists. Data is collected from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument aboard the EOS-Aura satellite, which launched in 2004 and provides a 2600 km viewing swath.

Use Cases

• Tracking volcanic SO2 plume dispersion and quantifying eruption magnitude using the three retrieved vertical column values.
• Monitoring long-term trends in anthropogenic SO2 emissions from industrial regions by analyzing time-series data across the instrument's near-daily global coverage.
• Validating atmospheric chemistry and air quality models by comparing modeled SO2 columns against the satellite-retrieved geophysical products.
• Assessing the impact of major pollution events using the dataset's quality flags to filter for reliable SO2 measurements.

Strengths

• Provides near-daily global coverage due to the instrument's 2600 km viewing swath width.
• Includes three distinct SO2 vertical column retrievals per observation, corresponding to different a-priori atmospheric profiles.
• Data is processed with a Near Real-Time (NRT) latency, as indicated by the dataset title.

Limitations

• Specific row counts, file sizes beyond the maximum 21 MB per orbit, and complete column lists are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on license information, with one specifying 'other-license-specified' and another listing 'None'.
• Data is limited to the sunlit portion of each orbit (~53 minutes), missing nocturnal observations.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard DAAC, from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) aboard the EOS-Aura satellite. Principal investigator is Dr. Pieternel Levelt of KNMI.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the OMI spectrometer, with retrieval algorithms led by NASA/UMBC scientists Drs. Nikolay Krotkov, Kai Yang, and Arlin J. Krueger.

Time Range

Instrument launched July 15, 2004; dataset coverage spans from that date onward, though an exact end date is not specified.

Freshness

Last updated date is listed as 2026-03-12 on two platforms, but this appears to be a placeholder or future date.

Geography

Global coverage.