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Full catalog/HAQES_NA_PM25_BC_CENSUS
HAQES_NA_PM25_BC_CENSUS·v1·dataset

Soot pollution in the air by neighborhood (North America)

HAQES 3-Hourly Ensemble mean surface PM2.5 Black Carbon concentration at census level, North America V1 (HAQES_NA_PM25_BC_CENSUS) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 4 active
In plain English

What it measures. Estimated levels of black carbon — the sooty part of fine particle pollution (PM2.5) — at ground level, broken down by neighborhood (census area) across North America and updated every three hours.

How it's made. Not a single satellite measurement but a blended forecast: several NASA, Navy, and NOAA air-quality models are combined into an ensemble average, then mapped down to the census level.

How & where you'd use it. Helps public-health and air-quality work by showing where soot pollution is concentrated, especially during wildfires, dust storms, and volcanic events.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITYATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › PARTICULATE MATTERHUMAN DIMENSIONS › PUBLIC HEALTH › ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH FACTORS › PARTICULATE MATTER CONCENTRATIONSHUMAN DIMENSIONS › PUBLIC HEALTH › ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH FACTORS › PARTICULATE MATTER (PM 2.5)ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › BLACK CARBON

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2022-11-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byHAQES (NOT APPLICABLE)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-132, 21, -58.5, 53.5
  • 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

This product provides HAQES 3-hourly ensemble mean surface PM2.5 Black Carbon concentration at the census level over the continental United States (CONUS). The Hazardous Air Quality Ensemble System (HAQES) is a real-time ensemble forecast of hazardous air quality events, such as wildfires, dust storms, and Volcanic eruptions. Both regional and global models from multiple agencies are used to create the ensemble, including the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS) from Naval Research Laboratory, the Global Ensemble Forecast System Aerosols (GEFS), High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (NOAA-EPA) Atmosphere-Chemistry Coupler-Community Multiscale Air Quality model (NACC-CMAQ) from NOAA. The prototypes of HAQES products were developed by the George Mason University Air Quality Laboratory as part of the NASA Health Air Quality Applied Science Team (HAQAST).

Get the data

haqes_na_pm25_bc_census_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="HAQES_NA_PM25_BC_CENSUS",
    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 GES_DISC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.