TOMS/EP: Near-UV Aerosol and Cloud Properties from Satellite

NASA's MEaSUREs program provides a 32-year Fundamental Climate Data Record of calibrated radiances and an Earth System Data Record of aerosol properties derived from near-UV satellite observations. The TOMS Earth Probe Level-2 orbital product contains cloud fraction, cloud optical depth, normalized radiance, reflectivity, residue, and UV aerosol index at approximately 40x40 km resolution. Data are available from three satellite sensors flown between 1978 and 2005.

Use Cases

• Analyzing long-term trends in atmospheric aerosol loading based on the UV aerosol index.
• Studying cloud-aerosol interactions using concurrent cloud fraction and cloud optical depth measurements.
• Validating climate model outputs against a multi-decadal, calibrated radiance record.
• Mapping surface UV reflectivity (LER) over land and ocean for albedo studies.

Strengths

• Provides a continuous, multi-decadal record spanning 32 years (from the sensor timeline).
• Data is part of NASA's MEaSUREs program, indicating it is a calibrated, fundamental climate data record (FCDR).
• Contains multiple derived geophysical variables (aerosol index, cloud properties, reflectivity) in a single product.

Limitations

• Key metadata (row count, file size, specific columns) is unavailable across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2002 vs. 2026) suggest potential metadata freshness issues.
• Spatial resolution is coarse (~40x40 km at nadir), limiting fine-scale analysis.

Provenance

Source

NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC)

Collection Method

Satellite observations from Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instruments aboard Nimbus-7, Meteor-3, Earth Probe, and ADEOS satellites.

Time Range

1978 to 2005

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:31:09.486254

Geography

Global, from satellite orbits.