TES/Aura L2 Formic Acid Lite Nadir V007: Atmospheric Profiles

TL2FORLN_7 contains retrieved profiles of formic acid from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer on the Aura satellite. Each global survey consists of observations along 16 consecutive orbits, performing up to 3,200 retrievals per two-day cycle. The data includes volume mixing ratios, temperature profiles, surface temperature, and diagnostic quantities like precision and vertical resolution, formatted in HDF-EOS swath files.

Use Cases

• Analyzing global distributions of formic acid (a volatile organic compound) based on retrieved Volume Mixing Ratio (VMR) profiles.
• Studying changes in observation methodology over time based on the shift from two to three low-resolution scans per orbit after April 24, 2005.
• Assessing retrieval quality and error for atmospheric models using the provided precision, total error, and vertical resolution data.
• Mapping nadir observation sequences and geolocation for specific orbits using the swath format data from the four focal planes.

Strengths

• Provides a specific quantity of retrievals: up to 3,200 per global survey cycle.
• Contains detailed diagnostic parameters for each retrieval, including vertical resolution and total error.
• Data collection methodology is explicitly described, including the change in scan count on April 24, 2005.

Limitations

• Column names and exact data structure are unknown from the provided metadata.
• The dataset's last update date conflicts between sources (2015 vs. 2026), indicating potential metadata inconsistency.
• Specific file sizes and row counts are not provided.

Provenance

Source

Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) on the Aura satellite, processed by NASA.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing using nadir-viewing spectrometer scans, with atmospheric parameters retrieved via radiative transfer modeling and spectral comparison.

Time Range

Data collection spans from before April 24, 2005 to after, but exact start and end dates are not specified.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:49:03.433873 (from nasa_earthdata and datagov, conflicting with an older 2015 date)

Geography

Global, based on consecutive satellite orbits during global surveys.