TROPESS CrIS-SNPP: Atmospheric Gas Profiles Over Tokyo

NASA's TROPESS CrIS-SNPP L2 Summary Product provides vertical distributions of six atmospheric gases—methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen deuterium oxide (HDO), ammonia (NH3), ozone (O3), and peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN)—over Tokyo. Data is derived from the CrIS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite using the MUSES optimal estimation algorithm, offering profiles at 17 vertical levels from the surface to 0.1 hPa. This special collection focuses on a 3x3 degree region centered on Tokyo from January 2016 to May 2021.

Use Cases

• Tracking urban ammonia emissions and their vertical transport based on NH3 concentration profiles.
• Analyzing seasonal variations in ozone and its precursors using multi-year time-series data.
• Studying the vertical distribution of methane to inform emission inventories for Tokyo.
• Investigating pollution events by correlating carbon monoxide and peroxyacetyl nitrate levels across atmospheric layers.
• Validating atmospheric chemistry models with satellite-derived vertical profiles of six key gases.

Strengths

• Provides vertical profiles at 17 specific pressure levels, offering detailed atmospheric structure.
• Covers a multi-year time period from 2016-01-02 to 2021-05-21 for longitudinal analysis.
• Has a defined spatial resolution of 14 km at nadir for the CrIS instrument.
• Includes formal uncertainties for each retrieved gas species, supporting rigorous error analysis.

Limitations

• Spatial coverage is limited to a single 3x3 degree region centered on Tokyo.
• Metadata for specific column names, row counts, and file sizes is not provided across platforms.
• The dataset's freshness is unclear as the last platform update date (2026-04-09) appears to be a metadata artifact, not a data refresh.

Provenance

Source

NASA TROPESS project, Principal Investigator Kevin W. Bowman, GES DISC.

Collection Method

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

Time Range

2016-01-02 to 2021-05-21

Freshness

2026-04-09 21:22:00.871724

Geography

3x3 degree region centered on Tokyo, Japan.