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Full catalog/MIL3YAE
MIL3YAE·v004·dataset

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

MISR Level 3 Component Global Aerosol Product covering a year V004
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 active HDF-EOS2
In plain English

What it measures. A yearly global summary of haze, dust and smoke in the air, given as aerosol optical depth at green wavelengths plus a breakdown of the types of airborne particles, on a half-degree grid.

How it's made. Compiled from the MISR instrument on Terra, which images each location from nine angles in four colors; the underlying measurements are averaged over a full year and gridded.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying year-to-year and long-term patterns in airborne particles, including those from both natural sources and human activity; data collection ended in November 2016.

What's measured

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

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1999-12-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byTerra (MISR)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsHDF-EOS2
  • 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

MIL3YAE_004 is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Level 3 Component Global Aerosol Product covering a year 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 year and reported on a geographic grid with a resolution of 0.5 degree by 0.5 degree. Data collection for this product was completed in November 2016. 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 exact 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 in 9 different directions. As the instrument flies overhead, each piece of Earth's surface below is successively 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

mil3yae_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MIL3YAE",
    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.