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Full catalog/MIL3QAEN
MIL3QAEN·v004·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke in the air, seasonal (MISR)

MISR Level 3 Component Global Aerosol seasonal product in netCDF format V004
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. A season-by-season global summary of how much haze and dust is in the air (aerosol thickness at green wavelengths) plus a breakdown of what types of particles are present.

How it's made. Built from the MISR instrument on the Terra satellite, whose nine cameras view each spot from multiple angles, then averaged over each quarter onto a half-degree grid.

How & where you'd use it. Good for studying seasonal and long-term patterns in airborne particles for climate and air-quality research.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL PARTICLE PROPERTIES › AEROSOL CONCENTRATIONATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL EXTINCTIONATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › TURBIDITYATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › PARTICULATESATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › ANGSTROM EXPONENT

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1999-12-18 → ongoing
  • Measured byTerra (MISR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • 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 file contains the MISR Level 3 Component Global Aerosol product in netCDF format covering a quarter (seasonal). MIL3QAEN_004 is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Level 3 Component Global Aerosol seasonal product in netCDF format version 4 data product. It contains a statistical summary of column aerosol 555-nanometer optical depth and a monthly aerosol compositional type frequency histogram. This data product is a global summary of relevant Level 2 aerosol parameters, averaged over a quarter (seasonal) and reported on a geographic grid, with a resolution of 0.5 degree by 0.5 degree. The seasons are winter (December from the previous year, January, February), spring (March, April, May), summer (June, July, August), and fall (September, October, November). Data collection for this product is ongoing. The MISR instrument consists of nine push-broom cameras that measure radiance in four spectral bands. Global coverage is achieved in nine days. The cameras are arranged with one camera pointing toward the nadir, four forward, and four aftward. It takes seven minutes for all nine cameras to view the same surface location. The view angles relative to the surface reference ellipsoid are 0, 26.1, 45.6, 60.0, and 70.5 degrees. The spectral band shapes are nominally Gaussian, centered at 443, 555, 670, and 865 nm. MISR is designed to view Earth with cameras pointed in 9 different directions. As the instrument flies overhead, each piece of Earth's surface below is successfully imaged by all nine cameras in 4 wavelengths (blue, green, red, and near-infrared). The goal of MISR is to improve our understanding of the effects of sunlight on Earth and distinguish different types of clouds, particles, and surfaces. Specifically, MISR monitors the monthly, seasonal, and long-term trends in three areas: 1) amount and type of atmospheric particles (aerosols), including those formed by natural sources and by human activities; 2) amounts, types, and heights of clouds, and 3) distribution of land surface cover, including vegetation canopy structure.

Get the data

mil3qaen_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MIL3QAEN",
    version="004",
    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.