Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/g3btb
g3btb·v6·dataset

Raw sunlight dimming through the atmosphere (native format)

SAGE III/ISS L1B Solar Event Transmission Data (Native) V006
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 1B active Binary
In plain English

What it measures. Profiles of how much sunlight got through Earth's atmosphere during a single sunrise or sunset, recorded at various heights.

How it's made. A raw Level 1B product from the SAGE III instrument on the International Space Station, delivered in its native file format, based on watching sunlight pass through the atmosphere's edge.

How & where you'd use it. A foundational input for deriving upper-atmosphere measurements of aerosols, ozone, water vapor, and trace gases; this raw form is mainly a stepping stone to higher-level products. The data has fed into World Meteorological Organization ozone assessments.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › ULTRAVIOLET RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › SHORTWAVE RADIATIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › LONGWAVE RADIATION

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2017-06-07 → ongoing
  • Measured byISS (SAGE III)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsBinary
  • 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

g3btb_6 is the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) on the International Space Station (ISS) (SAGE III/ISS) Level 1B Solar Event Transmission Data (Native) V6 data product. It contains pixel group transmission profiles for a single solar event. SAGE III was Launched on February 19, 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center, SAGE III-ISS is the second instrument from the SAGE III project, externally mounted on the ISS. Data collection for this product is ongoing. This ISS-based instrument uses a technique known as occultation, which involves looking at the light from the Sun or Moon as it passes through Earth's atmosphere at the edge, or limb, of the planet to provide long-term monitoring of ozone vertical profiles of the stratosphere and mesosphere. The data provided by SAGE III-ISS includes key components of atmospheric composition and their long-term variability, focusing on the study of aerosols, chlorine dioxide, clouds, nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen trioxide, pressure and temperature, and water vapor. SAGE data has historically been used by the World Meteorological Organization to inform their periodic assessments of ozone depletion. These new observations from the International Space Station will continue the SAGE team's contributions to ongoing scientific understanding of the Earth's atmosphere.

Get the data

g3btb_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="g3btb",
    version="6",
    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 LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.