AIRS CLIMCAPS: Atmospheric State Profiles from Aqua Satellite

NASA's AIRS CLIMCAPS retrieval product provides vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature, water vapor, ozone, and trace gases derived from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard the Aqua satellite. The dataset uses an Optimal Estimation algorithm to characterize the full atmospheric state, including surface properties and cloud top characteristics, with a horizontal resolution of 50 km. Data is organized into 240 granules per day, each covering 6 minutes of observations.

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical temperature profiles for atmospheric dynamics research based on the 100-level temperature data.
• Monitoring trace gas concentrations like carbon monoxide and methane for air quality and pollution studies.
• Assessing cloud properties and their radiative effects using infrared effective cloud top characteristics.
• Validating and improving global climate models with full atmospheric state parameters from satellite observations.

Strengths

• Provides high vertical resolution with temperature profiles at 100 levels between 1100 mb and 0.1 mb.
• Derived from a well-established satellite instrument (AIRS) using a documented Optimal Estimation methodology.
• Offers a multi-parameter atmospheric state including surface, cloud, and trace gas data in a single product.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and exact file size are not provided across any source.
• The 'last updated' date of 2026-04-09 appears to be a future date, indicating potential metadata inaccuracy.
• Documentation gaps exist, as the detailed column schema is listed as 'unknown'.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing data from the AIRS instrument on the EOS Aqua platform, processed with the CLIMCAPS retrieval algorithm.

Freshness

2026-04-09 20:31:31.425106 (Note: This is a future date, suggesting a metadata error)

Geography

Global coverage from polar-orbiting satellite.