SNDRSNIML2CPS: Atmospheric State Profiles from Satellite Sounder

CLIMCAPS Level 2 data provides retrieved atmospheric state profiles from the Suomi NPP satellite's CrIS/ATMS instruments. The algorithm uses Optimal Estimation and MERRA-2 as a first guess to derive surface properties, full atmosphere profiles of temperature, water vapor, ozone, and trace gases like carbon monoxide and methane. Each granule contains 6 minutes of data, with 30 footprints cross track and 45 lines along track.

Use Cases

• Monitoring atmospheric carbon monoxide and methane concentrations based on retrieved trace gas profiles.
• Analyzing vertical temperature and water vapor profiles for weather forecasting and climate model validation.
• Studying cloud top characteristics and surface skin temperature based on infrared effective cloud and surface parameters.
• Assessing total atmospheric ozone and sulfur dioxide based on full atmosphere profile retrievals.
• Calculating layered precipitable water and outgoing longwave radiation based on derived atmospheric water vapor and radiation indicators.

Strengths

• Derives a wide set of geophysical parameters, including profiles for 7 trace gases and 3 cloud properties.
• Uses high spectral resolution data from 2211 infrared channels and 22 microwave channels.
• Provides global coverage from a polar-orbiting satellite with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 days.

Limitations

• Product latency is 3 to 7 weeks due to dependency on MERRA-2 reanalysis data.
• Specific column names and dataset size metrics (rows, file size) are not provided in the source metadata.
• Platform metadata shows conflicts on tags and license information, with some entries listing 'none' or 'None'.

Provenance

Source

GES_DISC

Collection Method

Data retrieved from the Suomi NPP satellite's CrIS/ATMS instruments using the CLIMCAPS Optimal Estimation algorithm.

Freshness

2026-04-09 22:54:52.011773

Geography

Global