Haze, dust and smoke in the air (High Mountain Asia) — HMA_OptDepth

In plain English

What it measures. Reports how hazy the air is over High Mountain Asia, capturing the amount of tiny airborne particles like dust, smoke and pollution. It also includes a related number that hints at whether those particles are large or small.

How it's made. Drawn from MODIS instruments on the Aqua and Terra satellites and packaged as monthly averages on a 1-degree map grid.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking air pollution and dust patterns across a mountainous region where ground monitoring is sparse, and for studying how haze affects mountain climate and snow.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › ANGSTROM EXPONENT

Coverage & cadence

Time span2000-02-01 → 2019-03-31
Measured byAqua (MODIS) · Terra (MODIS)
Processing levelLevel 4
Spatial extent55.5, 9.5, 99.5, 48.5
FormatsASCII
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 data set contains monthly mean MODIS Level 3 data from aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites. The parameters provided in this data set are aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Angstrom exponent (AE) at a spatial resolution of 1º by 1º.

Get the data

hma_optdepth_access.py

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="HMA_OptDepth",
    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_CPRD

Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.

What's measured

Coverage & cadence

What you can do with it

Get the data

Official links