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Full catalog/AIRVBRAD
AIRVBRAD·v005·dataset

Raw visible and near-infrared light readings (AIRS, Aqua)

AIRS/Aqua L1B Visible/Near Infrared (VIS/NIR) geolocated and calibrated radiances V005 (AIRVBRAD) at GES DISC
land NASA GES_DISC Level 1B active
In plain English

What it measures. Raw, calibrated readings of visible and near-infrared light (across four channels) captured by the AIRS instrument, with each measurement tied to a location on the ground.

How it's made. Recorded by the visible/near-infrared part of the AIRS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite; these are early-stage daytime-only radiance measurements at finer detail than its infrared product.

How & where you'd use it. Mainly a building-block input, used to flag uneven scenes that could affect AIRS temperature and moisture soundings, rather than something most people use directly.

What's measured

SPECTRAL/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 VIS/NIR level 1B data set contains visible and near-infrared calibrated and geolocated radiances in W/m^2/micron/steradian. This data set includes 4 channels in the 0.4 to 1.0 um region of the spectrum. Each day of AIRS data are divided into 240 granules each of 6 minute duration. However, the VIS/NIR granules are only produced in the daytime so there will always be fewer VIS/NIR granules. The primary purpose of the VIS/NIR channels is the detection and flagging of significant inhomogeneities in the infrared field-of-view,which may adversely impact the quality of the temperature and moisture soundings. Therefore the VIS/NIR radiance product has a higher spatial resolution than the Infrared radiance product. Each VIS/NIR scan has 9 alongtrack footprints and 720 across track footprints. For ease in comparing with the infrared product which has 135 along track footprints and 90 across track footprints, the VIS/NIR product has additional dimensions to account for the 9 additional alongtrack and 8 additional across track footprints.

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AIRVBRAD",
    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.