CLIMCAPS: Atmospheric State Profiles from AIRS/AMSU on Aqua

CLIMCAPS V2.1 algorithm produces atmospheric state profiles at fixed pressure levels using data from the AIRS and AMSU instruments aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The dataset includes gas mixing ratios, column totals, surface values, tropopause properties, and relative humidity, with per-field quality flagging. Data are organized into 6-minute granules, with 240 produced daily, and rely on MERRA-2 reanalysis as a first-guess, resulting in a latency of 3 to 7 weeks.

Use Cases

• Monitoring tropospheric ozone and trace gas profiles for air quality and climate studies.
• Analyzing vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature and humidity for weather and climate model assimilation.
• Studying cloud properties and cloud-top temperature for cloud-climate feedback research.
• Calculating total and layered precipitable water for hydrological cycle analysis.
• Investigating tropopause properties and upper-air temperature for atmospheric dynamics.

Strengths

• Derived from well-established satellite instruments (AIRS/AMSU) on the Aqua platform, providing a long-term record.
• Includes per-field quality flagging for individual data variables.
• Provides global coverage with a high temporal resolution of 240 granules per day.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are not provided across sources.
• Data has a significant latency of 3 to 7 weeks due to dependency on MERRA-2 reanalysis inputs.
• License is ambiguously specified as 'other-license-specified', requiring further investigation for use.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the AIRS/AMSU instruments on the Aqua satellite, processed with the CLIMCAPS V2.1 algorithm.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global