OMPS-N21: Stratospheric Aerosol Extinction Vertical Profiles

Six wavelengths (510, 600, 675, 745, 869, and 997 nm) provide multi-spectral aerosol extinction coefficients from the OMPS Limb-Profiler sensor on the NOAA-N21 satellite. Data is collected from the ground up to about 80 km with a vertical resolution of approximately 1.8 km, covering about 14.5 global orbits per day. This product, which replaces the previous single-wavelength AER675, is generated via a neural network for near-real-time processing and is stored in HDF5 format.

Use Cases

• Tracking volcanic aerosol plume evolution based on multi-wavelength extinction profiles.
• Validating atmospheric chemistry and climate models using global, vertically-resolved aerosol data.
• Studying stratospheric aerosol layer trends and composition from six distinct spectral channels.
• Analyzing the spatial distribution of aerosols across three limb profiles spaced ~250 km apart per orbit.

Strengths

• Provides data at six specific wavelengths (510, 600, 675, 745, 869, 997 nm) for detailed spectral analysis.
• Offers high vertical resolution of approximately 1.8 km from the ground to 80 km altitude.
• Has global spatial coverage (-90 to 90 degrees latitude) with about 14.5 orbits per day.
• Is processed via a neural network for near-real-time (NRT) availability.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as column names, row counts, and file sizes are not provided on any platform.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without further details.
• Data is limited to the daylight portion of each satellite orbit.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing via the Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite (OMPS) Limb-Profiler sensor on the NOAA-N21 satellite.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global coverage from -90 to 90 degrees latitude.