OMUVB: Surface UV Irradiance from Aura OMI Satellite

OMI/Aura Surface UV Irradiance Version 003 (OMUVB) is a Level-2 satellite product providing measurements of ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface. The dataset contains erythemally weighted daily dose and dose rate, spectral irradiances at specific wavelengths (305, 310, 324, and 380 nm), and ancillary data including cloud optical depth and total column ozone. Data is stored in HDF-EOS5 format, with files representing the sunlit portion of individual satellite orbits, approximately 14 per day.

Use Cases

• Assessing public health risks from UV exposure based on erythemally weighted daily dose.
• Studying atmospheric composition by analyzing correlations between spectral irradiances and total column ozone.
• Monitoring cloud cover and surface reflectivity using ancillary data fields like cloud optical depth and Lambertian Equivalent Reflectivity.
• Validating climate and atmospheric models with high-resolution, orbit-level surface UV observations.

Strengths

• Provides specific spectral irradiance measurements at 305, 310, 324, and 380 nm wavelengths.
• Data is collected from approximately 14 satellite orbits per day, offering frequent temporal sampling.
• Includes multiple derived and ancillary variables such as quality flags, cloud optical depth, and total ozone.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, column names, and exact spatial coverage are not provided in the available sources.
• Sources conflict on license information, with one specifying 'other-license-specified' and another showing 'None'.
• The description is highly technical and repetitive across platforms, with limited information on data preprocessing or validation.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

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

Freshness

2026-04-09 23:17:11.860846

Geography

Global coverage from satellite swaths.