TOMS Earth Probe: Ozone, Aerosol, and Reflectivity Swath Data

The Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) Version 8 orbital swath data product contains total column ozone, UV aerosol index, and Lambertian effective surface reflectivity at approximately 50x50 km resolution at nadir. It includes auxiliary parameters such as SO2 index, cloud fraction, cloud pressure, ozone below clouds, terrain height, and data quality flags. These data are stored in the version 5 EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5) and were produced by the Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Use Cases

• Monitoring global ozone layer health based on total column ozone measurements.
• Tracking aerosol transport and volcanic SO2 plumes using the UV aerosol index and SO2 index.
• Analyzing surface reflectance properties for radiative transfer studies using Rayleigh-corrected reflectivity.
• Assessing cloud influence on atmospheric measurements using cloud fraction and cloud pressure data.
• Validating satellite-derived atmospheric parameters against ground-based observations using geolocation and quality flags.

Strengths

• Provides multiple atmospheric parameters (ozone, aerosols, reflectivity) in a single, geolocated swath product.
• Data originates from a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center laboratory, indicating authoritative provenance.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals importance and broad availability.

Limitations

• Column names are unknown across all sources, limiting precise understanding of data structure.
• Dataset size and row counts are unspecified, hindering assessment of data volume.
• Update dates conflict between sources (2003 vs. 2026), suggesting metadata inconsistency.

Provenance

Source

Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Code 614).

Collection Method

Satellite measurements from the Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:44:30.845905

Geography

Global orbital swath coverage.