TES/Aura L2 HNO3: Atmospheric Nitric Acid Vertical Profiles from Limb Observations

TES/Aura L2 HNO3 Limb Special Observation V006 provides vertical profile estimates of nitric acid (HNO3) in the atmosphere. The dataset includes associated errors, retrieved surface temperature, cloud optical depth, column estimates, quality flags, averaging kernels, and a priori constraints. It was produced by the LARC_CLOUD organization and last updated on NASA Earthdata in May 2006.

Use Cases

• Modeling stratospheric ozone depletion based on nitric acid vertical profiles.
• Validating satellite retrievals based on averaging kernels and a priori constraints.
• Analyzing cloud impacts on trace gas measurements based on cloud effective optical depth.
• Assessing data quality for atmospheric studies based on included quality flags.

Strengths

• Includes vertical profile estimates with associated error matrices (diagonals and covariances).
• Provides auxiliary data like surface temperature, cloud optical depth, and column estimates.
• Contains quality assurance elements such as quality flags and averaging kernels.

Limitations

• Last updated 2006-05-20 05:50:21.532000; freshness should be verified.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

LARC_CLOUD via NASA Earthdata (nasa_earthdata).

Collection Method

Satellite limb observations from the TES instrument on the Aura spacecraft.

Time Range

Observation date implied by filename is 2006-05-20.

Freshness

Last updated 2006-05-20 05:50:21.532000

Geography

Global coverage from satellite observations.