TOMSN7L3mref: Nimbus-7 UV Surface Reflectivity Monthly Global Grid

Nimbus-7 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer data provides Lambertian effective surface reflectivity values, corrected for Rayleigh scattering. These monthly averages are mapped to a consistent global grid of 180 by 288 cells at a 1.00 by 1.25-degree latitude/longitude resolution. The dataset is produced by NASA's Laboratory for Atmospheres and stored in ASCII format.

Use Cases

• Calibrating satellite ozone retrieval algorithms based on Rayleigh-corrected surface reflectivity.
• Analyzing long-term changes in surface albedo and aerosol distribution from the global gridded data.
• Validating climate and atmospheric models using the monthly-averaged, geospatially mapped values.

Strengths

• Provides a consistent global grid with a defined spatial resolution of 1.00 x 1.25 degrees.
• Data is produced by an authoritative source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Laboratory for Atmospheres (Code 614).
• Cross-platform presence on Data.gov and NASA EarthData indicates established importance and curation.

Limitations

• Metadata conflict: last update dates are inconsistent (1993 on NASA EarthData vs. 2026 on Data.gov).
• Column names and detailed data structure are not provided in the available metadata.
• The dataset's temporal coverage (start and end dates) is not explicitly stated.

Provenance

Source

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

Collection Method

Collected by the Nimbus-7 Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument and processed to Version 8.

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:43:40.258141

Geography

Global, gridded.