PACE OCI Level-2 Regional Aerosol Optical Properties from Unified Aerosol Algorithm

The AER_UAA suite provides aerosol optical properties retrieved using the Unified Aerosol Algorithm from NASA's PACE mission. Core variables include aerosol optical depth at multiple wavelengths, aerosol layer height, single scattering albedo, and cloud properties. Typical uses include air-quality and climate analyses, aerosol context for ocean-color atmospheric correction, trend studies, and model evaluation.

Use Cases

• Air-quality analysis based on Aerosol_Optical_Depth and AAOD measures.
• Climate trend studies based on time-series aerosol optical properties.
• Model evaluation for atmospheric correction based on AerosolSingleScattAlbedo and AerosolLayerHeight.
• Ocean-color research based on aerosol context data mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Provides multiple core geophysical variables including Aerosol_Optical_Depth, AAOD, and AerosolLayerHeight.
• Algorithmically derived from the Unified Aerosol Algorithm (UAA), version 3.1.
• Includes companion products like UV Absorbing Aerosol Index for extended analysis.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred from per-file metadata.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NASA Earthdata via the OB_CLOUD organization.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the PACE OCI instrument, processed with the Unified Aerosol Algorithm.

Geography

Regional coverage, likely from the PACE satellite's observations.