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Full catalog/AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP
AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP·v2·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke in the air (VIIRS, Suomi-NPP)

VIIRS/SNPP Deep Blue Aerosol L2 6 Min Swath 6km
atmosphere NASA LAADS Level 2 active NetCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. This gauges how much haze, dust and smoke is floating in the air on clear, daytime, snow-free scenes, reported as a measure of how much the airborne particles dim sunlight at a standard color. It covers both land and ocean.

How it's made. Derived from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite using the 'Deep Blue' method over land and a companion method over ocean, delivered as strips of data along the satellite's orbit.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking air quality, dust storms and wildfire smoke, and for studying how tiny airborne particles affect health, visibility and climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › ANGSTROM EXPONENT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2012-03-01 → ongoing
  • Measured bySuomi-NPP (VIIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsNetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

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

The VIIRS/SNPP Deep Blue Aerosol L2 6-Min Swath 6 km product from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) determines atmospheric aerosol loading for daytime cloud-free snow-free scenes. This orbit-level product (Short-name: AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP) has an at-nadir resolution of 6 km x 6 km, and progressively increases away from nadir given the sensor’s scanning geometry and Earth’s curvature. Viewed differently, this product’s resolution accommodates 8 x 8 native VIIRS moderate-resolution (M-band) pixels that nominally have ~750 m horizontal pixel size. The L2 Deep Blue AOT data products, at 550 nanometers reference wavelengths, are derived from particular VIIRS bands using two primary AOT retrieval algorithms: Deep Blue algorithm over land, and the Satellite Ocean Aerosol Retrieval (SOAR) algorithm over ocean. Although this product is called Deep Blue based on retrievals for the land algorithm, the data includes over-water retrievals as well. This L2 description pertains to the VIIRS Deep Blue Aerosol collection version 2.0 (C2) product. Significant changes have been made to the V2.0 Deep Blue/SOAR algorithms to further improve the data quality. For C2.0, the aerosol products are available for NOAA20 VIIRS in addition to SNPP. Some of changes in the retrieval algorithms and data products include, new SDS suite for prognostic uncertainties of 550 nm AOT over both land and ocean is added, surface pressure is better accounted for for both over-land and over-ocean retrievals by adding surface pressure nodes in the aerosol lookup table, and a number of other improvements which can be found from Product page at: https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/missions-and-measurements/products/AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP For more information consult Deep Blue aerosol team Page at: https://deepblue.gsfc.nasa.gov

Get the data

aerdb_l2_viirs_snpp_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AERDB_L2_VIIRS_SNPP",
    version="2",
    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 LAADS
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.