TOMSEPL3: Daily Global Atmospheric Ozone and UV Irradiance

NASA's Earth Probe TOMS instrument provides a daily global snapshot of total column ozone, UV aerosol index, surface reflectivity, and UV-B erythemal irradiance. Data is mapped to a consistent 1.00 x 1.25 degree latitude-longitude grid, stored in HDF-EOS format. This version 8 product is produced by the Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Use Cases

• Tracking the Antarctic ozone hole based on daily total column ozone measurements.
• Monitoring global aerosol transport and volcanic ash plumes using the UV aerosol index.
• Estimating surface UV exposure for public health studies based on erythemal irradiance data.
• Analyzing long-term trends in atmospheric composition from a consistent, gridded time series.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent, daily global grid of 180 x 288 cells for uniform spatial analysis.
• Contains multiple co-located atmospheric variables (ozone, aerosols, reflectivity, irradiance) for integrated studies.
• Produced by a definitive source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for Atmospheres.

Limitations

• Metadata completeness is low; specific column names, row counts, and exact temporal coverage are not provided.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2005 vs. 2026) across platforms create uncertainty about data currency and maintenance.
• Documentation gaps exist, as the license is only generically noted as 'other-license-specified'.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Satellite observations from the Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:31:52.473387 (from datagov, conflicting with older nasa_earthdata date)

Geography

Global, gridded to 1.00 x 1.25 degree resolution.