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Full catalog/ACR3L2DM
ACR3L2DM·v1·dataset

Daily total sunlight energy reaching Earth (ACRIM III)

ACRIM III Level 2 Daily Mean Data V001
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 2 HDF4
In plain English

What it measures. The total amount of energy arriving from the Sun at the top of Earth's atmosphere, reported as a daily average.

How it's made. Measured by the ACRIM III instrument on the ACRIMSAT satellite, with each daily figure built from the instrument's repeated shutter-cycle readings.

How & where you'd use it. Part of the long record of solar output, important for understanding the Sun's role in Earth's climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › SCATTERINGSUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS › SOLAR ACTIVITYATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › ABSORPTIONSUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS › SOLAR ACTIVITY › SOLAR IRRADIANCEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › SOLAR IRRADIANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2000-04-05 → 2013-11-09
  • Measured byACRIMSAT (ACRIM)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • FormatsHDF4
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

ACR3L2DM_1 is the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor (ACRIM) III Level 2 Daily Mean Data version 1 product consists of Level 2 total solar irradiance in the form of daily means gathered by the ACRIM III instrument on the ACRIMSAT satellite. The daily means are constructed from the shutter cycle results for each day.

Get the data

acr3l2dm_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ACR3L2DM",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.