TES/Aura L3 Water Vapor Monthly Gridded V006: Atmospheric Profiles

Monthly data from July 2004 onward, collected by the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer aboard NASA's Aura satellite, provides atmospheric temperature and water vapor volume mixing ratios. The Level 3 product interpolates Level 2 profiles onto a global grid of 2° latitude by 4° longitude at standard pressure levels. It includes data from both limb and nadir observation modes, averaged into daily and monthly granules.

Use Cases

• Analyzing global water vapor distribution based on volume mixing ratios (VMRs) at specific pressure levels.
• Studying atmospheric temperature profiles interpolated onto a uniform latitude-longitude grid.
• Comparing atmospheric gas concentrations from limb and nadir observation modes.
• Tracking monthly trends in atmospheric species using the Level 3 gridded averages.
• Validating climate models with satellite-derived 3-D representations of atmospheric gases.

Strengths

• Provides a 3-D representation of atmospheric gases on a defined global grid (2° lat x 4° lon).
• Contains data from two distinct observation modes (Limb and Nadir), offering different atmospheric perspectives.
• Data collection is complete, providing a fixed historical record from the TES instrument.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov indicates established curation and importance.

Limitations

• Exact column names and dataset size (rows, file size) are unspecified across all sources.
• The 'last updated' metadata conflicts between sources (2026-04-09 and 2018-01-31).
• Granules represent complete Global Surveys, meaning monthly products may not align precisely with calendar months.

Provenance

Source

NASA Aura satellite Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument.

Collection Method

Level 2 atmospheric profiles collected in Global Surveys were interpolated onto a global grid by the TES Science Data Processing L3 subsystem.

Time Range

From launch on July 15, 2004 until data collection completion.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:42:51.013059 (from two sources, though one source lists 2018-01-31)

Geography

Global coverage, gridded at 2 degree latitude by 4 degree longitude intervals.