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Full catalog/AIRVBQAP
AIRVBQAP·v005·dataset

Quality flags for raw AIRS visible/near-infrared imagery

AIRS/Aqua L1B Visible/Near Infrared (VIS/NIR) quality assurance subset V005 (AIRVBQAP) at GES DISC
land NASA GES_DISC Level 1B active
In plain English

What it measures. Quality-control flags for the AIRS instrument's raw visible and near-infrared images, including a 'state' indicator and details to check for sun-glint contamination.

How it's made. Produced alongside the AIRS visible/near-infrared sensor on NASA's Aqua satellite as a quality-assurance companion to the raw radiance data.

How & where you'd use it. A helper dataset: users check these flags before trusting the matching raw AIRS image data (found in a separate product). Not a standalone measurement of anything on the ground.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › INFRARED RADIANCESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › VISIBLE WAVELENGTHS › VISIBLE RADIANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-08-30 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (AIRS)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Track deforestation, fire scars and land-cover change
  • Monitor crop and vegetation health (NDVI/EVI)
  • Map how built-up vs. green an area is over time
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. The AIRS Visible/Near Infrared (VIS/NIR) Level 1B QA Subset contains Quality Assurance (QA) parameters that a may use of filter AIRS VIS/NIR Level 1B radiance data to create a subset of analysis. It includes "state" that user should check before using any VIS/NIR Level 1B data radiance and "glintlat", "glintlon", and "sun_glint_distant" that users can use to check for possibility of solar glint contamination. AIRS VIS/NIR Level 1B radiance data can be found in AIRVBRAD.

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AIRVBQAP",
    version="005",
    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.