TROPESS CrIS-SNPP: Global Ammonia Vertical Profiles from Satellite

TROPESS CrIS-SNPP L2 Ammonia for Forward Stream, Standard Product provides the vertical distribution of atmospheric ammonia (NH3) retrieved from the CrIS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite. The dataset contains retrieved atmospheric states, formal uncertainties, and diagnostic information, reported at 15 vertical levels from the surface to 0.1 hPa. Data is global, covering the period from February 1 to May 21, 2021, after which the CrIS-SNPP processing was discontinued.

Use Cases

• Mapping global ammonia pollution sources based on vertical concentration profiles.
• Validating atmospheric chemistry models using satellite-derived ammonia columns.
• Studying seasonal ammonia variability in early 2021 using the daily time series.
• Assessing retrieval algorithm performance via the included diagnostic information.

Strengths

• Provides data at a high spatial resolution of 14 km (CrIS nadir field of view).
• Includes formal uncertainties for the retrieved ammonia values.
• Offers vertical profiling across 15 distinct atmospheric levels.

Limitations

• Temporal coverage is limited to a short, 3.5-month period in 2021.
• License information is ambiguous, listed only as 'other-license-specified'.
• Column-level metadata is unavailable, limiting detailed understanding of the data structure.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) TROPESS project, Principal Investigator Kevin W. Bowman.

Collection Method

Satellite remote sensing using the CrIS instrument on Suomi-NPP, processed with the MUSES optimal estimation algorithm.

Time Range

2021-02-01 to 2021-05-21

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:36:21.029124

Geography

Global