AER_RTAPLAND provides aerosol optical thickness, layer height, single scattering albedo, and spectrally resolved land-surface BRDF parameters retrieved from PACE SPEXone satellite observations. The dataset is produced by OB_CLOUD using the RemoTAP algorithm for near real-time delivery. Its primary uses include air-quality monitoring, climate studies, and radiative transfer modeling.
Use Cases
- Modeling aerosol radiative forcing using aot550, ssa, and alh columns.
- Analyzing aerosol type and size distribution via reff_fine, reff_coarse, fmf, and angstrom exponents.
- Characterizing land-surface reflectance for coupled atmosphere-surface studies using bpdf_scale, ross_thick, and li_sparse kernel coefficients.
- Assessing aerosol vertical distribution and lidar properties from lidar_bsca_total and lidar_ratio.
- Estimating chlorophyll-a concentration in inland waters from the chla parameter.
Strengths
- Provides a comprehensive suite of over 20 core geophysical variables for aerosol and surface characterization.
- Algorithm jointly retrieves atmospheric aerosol and land-surface properties, enabling coupled analysis.
Limitations
- Spatial coverage is limited to land regions, excluding open ocean aerosol data.
- Data quality over specific land cover types (e.g., bright snow) may be affected by retrieval assumptions.
- Near real-time data may have lower stability compared to final science-grade products.
Provenance
- Source
- NASA Earthdata (PACE SPEXone instrument)
- Collection Method
- Satellite remote sensing data processed with the RemoTAP retrieval algorithm.
- Time Range
- null
- Freshness
- Near real-time (NRT)
- Geography
- Regional coverage over land surfaces globally.