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Full catalog/AIRX2RET
AIRX2RET·v7.0·dataset

Temperature, water vapor, and gases through the atmosphere (Aqua, V7)

Aqua/AIRS L2 Standard Physical Retrieval (AIRS+AMSU) V7.0 at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2
In plain English

What it measures. Vertical profiles through the atmosphere, reporting temperature and water vapor at many levels plus ozone, carbon monoxide, and methane, along with cloud and surface properties. This is the version 7 record.

How it's made. Produced from the AIRS infrared sounder paired with the AMSU microwave instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, as a processed retrieval that turns raw readings into geophysical estimates.

How & where you'd use it. Widely used in weather forecasting and climate studies to understand how temperature, moisture, and trace gases are distributed through the atmosphere.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › CARBON MONOXIDEATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › TROPOSPHERIC OZONEATMOSPHERE › ALTITUDE › GEOPOTENTIAL HEIGHTATMOSPHERE › ALTITUDE › TROPOPAUSEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › METHANEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › OXYGEN COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC OZONEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › SULFUR COMPOUNDS › SULFUR DIOXIDEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE › SURFACE PRESSUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › OUTGOING LONGWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › SURFACE TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › SURFACE TEMPERATURE › AIR TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › UPPER AIR TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR INDICATORS › TOTAL PRECIPITABLE WATERATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR PROFILES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2002-08-30 → 2016-09-25
  • Measured byAqua (AIRS, AMSU-A)
  • 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

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. The AIRS combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of infrared and microwave sensors. 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 are also be 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

airx2ret_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="AIRX2RET",
    version="7.0",
    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.