TRPSCRQM3D: Global Specific Humidity at 27 Pressure Levels

JPL's MOMO-Chem framework assimilates multiple satellite sensors to produce this 3D reanalysis of atmospheric water vapor. The dataset provides monthly specific humidity values on a 1.125-degree grid across 27 pressure levels from 1000 to 60 hPa, covering 2005 to 2021. It is part of the Tropospheric Chemical Reanalysis v2 (TCR-2), which simultaneously optimizes both concentrations and emissions.

Use Cases

• Analyzing vertical profiles of atmospheric moisture based on the 27 pressure levels.
• Studying long-term trends in global specific humidity from the 2005-2021 monthly time series.
• Validating or initializing climate models using the 1.125 x 1.125-degree gridded reanalysis data.
• Investigating correlations between humidity and other chemically assimilated species within the TCR-2 framework.

Strengths

• Provides a 17-year continuous record (2005-2021) of monthly atmospheric data.
• Offers three-dimensional spatial coverage with a defined horizontal grid (1.125°) and 27 vertical pressure levels.
• Generated using a sophisticated multi-model, multi-constituent chemical data assimilation system (MOMO-Chem).
• Cross-platform presence on NASA Earthdata and Data.gov signals its importance and curation.

Limitations

• Column names and a precise row/size count are not provided in the available metadata.
• The license is ambiguously listed as 'other-license-specified' without explicit terms.
• Data freshness is unclear; the last update timestamp is provided but the underlying data ends in 2021.

Provenance

Source

NASA GES DISC, generated by the Tropospheric Chemical Reanalysis v2 (TCR-2) project at JPL.

Collection Method

Data assimilation using the Multi-mOdel Multi-cOnstituent Chemical (MOMO-Chem) framework from multiple satellite sensors.

Time Range

2005 to 2021

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:24:53.675815

Geography

Global