OMUANC: Ancillary Land, Ice, and Terrain Data for OMI/Aura Satellite

OMUANC provides selected GEOS-5 Forward Processing model parameters co-located with the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) UV-2 satellite swath. The dataset includes snow cover, sea ice cover, land cover, terrain height, a row anomaly flag, and pixel area to support Level 2 algorithm processing and downstream research. Each netCDF4 file is approximately 45 MB and maps original 0.625°x0.5° model data to the OMI's 13km x 24km nadir resolution.

Use Cases

• Flagging or correcting satellite retrievals over snow-covered regions based on the snow cover parameter.
• Differentiating ocean surface types in satellite data analysis using the sea ice cover and ocean classification fields.
• Accounting for topographic effects on atmospheric measurements using the terrain height data.
• Identifying and filtering data affected by instrument row anomalies using the provided row anomaly flag.
• Calculating accurate geophysical quantities per satellite pixel using the pixel area information.

Strengths

• Data is spatially and temporally co-located with the OMI UV-2 swath, ensuring direct utility for algorithm teams.
• Each file contains a specific set of six ancillary parameters (snow, sea ice, land cover, terrain height, anomaly flag, pixel area) critical for atmospheric correction.
• Files are in the widely compatible netCDF4 format, with a consistent size of approximately 45 MB per file.

Limitations

• Specific column names and the total row count are not provided in any source, limiting precise technical understanding.
• The license is inconsistently reported as 'other-license-specified' or 'None', requiring further investigation for reuse.
• Metadata completeness varies across platforms, with some entries missing author, size, and update information.

Provenance

Source

Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) GEOS 5 Forward Processing for Instrument Teams (FP-IT) product, processed by the OMI/Aura team at GES DISC.

Collection Method

Parameters from the gridded GEOS-5 FP-IT assimilated product are selected and co-located in space and time with the OMI UV-2 swath.

Time Range

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Freshness

2026-04-09 23:06:57.118890

Geography

Global coverage corresponding to the OMI/Aura satellite UV-2 instrument swath.