SNDRAQIL3CMCCP: Monthly Atmospheric Profiles from AIRS Satellite

CLIMCAPS algorithm retrieves full atmospheric state profiles from the AIRS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. Temperature profiles have 100 vertical levels between 1100 mb and 0.1 mb, with a horizontal resolution of 50 km aggregated to a monthly 1°x1° grid. Retrieved parameters include surface properties, temperature, water vapor, ozone, and trace gases like carbon monoxide and methane.

Use Cases

• Monitoring global carbon monoxide transport based on retrieved column density profiles.
• Analyzing vertical temperature and moisture structure for weather and climate model validation.
• Studying cloud properties and their radiative impact using infrared effective cloud top characteristics.
• Tracking long-term trends in atmospheric methane and ozone concentrations.

Strengths

• Provides a vertically detailed atmospheric state with temperature at 100 levels and moisture profiles between 1100 mb and 300 mb.
• Derived from a well-documented, long-term satellite instrument (AIRS) using an Optimal Estimation methodology.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA and government data portals indicates established use and importance.

Limitations

• A known significant bias exists in the 'co_mmr_midtrop' variable due to a molecular weight conversion error, requiring user correction.
• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and exact file size are unavailable across all sources.
• The license is ambiguously specified as 'other-license-specified' without clear terms.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Sounder SIPS at JPL.

Collection Method

Retrievals from the AIRS grating spectrometer (R=1200) on the EOS Aqua satellite, processed with the CLIMCAPS algorithm.

Freshness

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

Geography

Global coverage on a 1 degree latitude by 1 degree longitude grid.