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Full catalog/AIRS2RET
AIRS2RET·v006·dataset

Temperature, water and gases through the air (Aqua, per orbit)

AIRS/Aqua L2 Standard Physical Retrieval (AIRS-only) V006 (AIRS2RET) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. Provides profiles of the atmosphere along each satellite orbit, including temperature and water vapor at many altitudes plus ozone, carbon monoxide, methane, and cloud and surface properties, with error estimates. Horizontal detail is about 50 km.

How it's made. Produced from the AIRS infrared sounder on the Aqua satellite (infrared only, after a companion microwave channel degraded), as per-orbit retrievals (Level 2).

How & where you'd use it. Used to study weather, atmospheric composition and greenhouse gases, and to feed and validate weather and climate models.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › SURFACE TEMPERATURE › AIR TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › CARBON MONOXIDEATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD FRACTIONATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD HEIGHTATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD VERTICAL DISTRIBUTIONLAND SURFACE › SURFACE RADIATIVE PROPERTIES › EMISSIVITYATMOSPHERE › ALTITUDE › GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHTATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › METHANEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › OUTGOING LONGWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › OXYGEN COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC OZONEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR INDICATORS › TOTAL PRECIPITABLE WATEROCEANS › OCEAN TEMPERATURE › SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-08-30 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (AIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • 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 Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. This product is similar to AIRX2RET. It is a new product produced using AIRS IR only because the radiometric noise in AMSU channel 4 started to increase significantly (since June 2007). The AIRS Standard Retrieval Product consists of retrieved estimates of cloud and surface properties, plus profiles of retrieved temperature, water vapor, ozone, carbon monoxide and methane. Estimates of the errors associated with these quantities is also part of the Standard Product. The temperature profile vertical resolution is 28 levels total between 1100 mb and 0.1 mb, while moisture profile is reported at 14 atmospheric layers between 1100 mb and 50 mb. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

Get the data

airs2ret_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AIRS2RET",
    version="006",
    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.