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Full catalog/AIRS_CPR_MAT
AIRS_CPR_MAT·v3.2·dataset

Clouds seen by two satellites at once (AIRS + CloudSat)

AIRS-CloudSat cloud mask, radar reflectivities, and cloud classification matchups V3.2 (AIRS_CPR_MAT) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2
In plain English

What it measures. Matched-up observations of the same clouds seen at the same place and time by two satellites, combining infrared spectra, cloud radar echoes, and a cloud mask, with details like cloud layers and their heights.

How it's made. Created by collocating measurements from the AIRS instrument on Aqua and the radar on CloudSat (part of the 'A-train' of satellites flying in formation), packaged together as a research dataset.

How & where you'd use it. Lets scientists study water vapor and clouds together from multiple sensors at once, building merged, multi-instrument climate records of atmospheric moisture sorted by cloud type.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2006-06-15 → 2012-12-14
  • Measured byAqua (AIRS) · CloudSat (CloudSat-CPR)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • 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

This is AIRS-CloudSat collocated subset, in NetCDF-4 format. These data contain collocated: AIRS Level 1b radiances spectra, CloudSat radar reflectivities, and MODIS cloud mask. These data are created within the frames of the MEaSUREs project. The basic task is to bring together retrievals of water vapor and cloud properties from multiple "A-train" instruments (AIRS, AMSR-E, MODIS, AMSU, MLS, CloudSat), classify each "scene" (instrument look) using the cloud information, and develop a merged, multi-sensor climatology of atmospheric water vapor as a function of altitude, stratified by the cloud classes. This is a large science analysis project that will require the use of SciFlo technologies to discover and organize all of the datasets, move and cache datasets as required, find space/time "matchups" between pairs of instruments, and process years of satellite data to produce the climate data records. The short name for this collection is AIRS_CPR_MAT Parameters contained in the data files include the following: Variable Name|Description|Units CldFrcStdErr|Cloud Fraction|(None) CloudLayers| Number of hydrometeor layers| (count) CPR_Cloud_mask| CPR Cloud Mask| (None) DEM_elevation| Digital Elevation Map| (m) dust_flag|Dust Flag|(None) latAIRS|AIRS IR latitude|(deg) Latitude|CloudSat Latitude |(degrees) LayerBase| Height of Layer Base| (m) LayerTop| Height of layer top| (m) lonAIRS|AIRS IR longitude|(deg) Longitude|CloudSat Longitude| (degrees) MODIS_cloud_flag| MOD35_bit_2and3_cloud_flag| (None) Radar_Reflectivity| Radar Reflectivity Factor| (dBZe) radiances|Radiances|(milliWatts/m**2/cm**-1/steradian) Sigma-Zero| Sigma-Zero| (dB*100) spectral_clear_indicator|Spectral Clear Indicator|(None) Vertical_binsize|CloudSat vertical binsize| (m) End of parameter information

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AIRS_CPR_MAT",
    version="3.2",
    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 GES_DISC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.