Ocean wind, vapor and rain along the track (AMSR-E/AMSR2)
What it measures. Conditions over the open ocean along the satellite's path: how much water vapor and cloud liquid water sit in the air column, plus wind speed measured 10 meters above the sea surface.
How it's made. Derived from the microwave glow the ocean and atmosphere emit, recorded by the AMSR-E and AMSR2 instruments and stitched into one consistent record by Japan's space agency.
How & where you'd use it. Useful for weather and ocean monitoring, tracking storms and moisture, and studying air-sea interaction.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2002-06-01 → 2011-10-04
- Measured byAqua (AMSR-E) · GCOM-W1 (AMSR2)
- Processing levelLevel 2B
- Spatial extent-180, -89.24, 180, 89.24
- FormatsHDF-EOS5
- 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 AMSR Unified global ocean data set reports integrated water vapor and cloud liquid water content in the atmospheric column, plus 10-meter sea surface wind speeds. The data are derived from AMSR-E and AMSR2 brightness temperature observations that have been resampled by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to facilitate an intercalibrated (i.e., “unified”) AMSR-E/AMSR2 data record. Ancillary files, including product history, quality assessment (QA), and file-specific metadata are also available.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="AU_Ocean",
version="1",
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 NSIDC_CPRDBrowsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- Search and order NASA Earth Science data using spatial and temporal filters. Reformatting, reprojecting, and subsetting options are available for some data sets. GET DATA
- Quickly download a few files using a web browser, or access data through a command-line utility such as WGET. GET DATA
- Search data by spatial and/or temporal ranges or file name. Choose from various download options, including a Python script. GET DATA
- A Python library to search and access NASA Earth science data with just a few lines of code GET DATA
- Find more data access options and help resources. VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- AMSR-E/AMSR2 Unified L2B Global Swath Ocean Products, Version 1 User Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- AMSR-E/AMSR2 Unified Algorithm Ocean Suite ATBD VIEW RELATED INFORMATION