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Full catalog/MIL3YAEN
MIL3YAEN·v004·dataset

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

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

What it measures. A yearly summary of airborne haze, dust, and smoke — measured as how much these tiny particles dim light — plus a breakdown of what types of particles were most common, averaged onto a half-degree global grid.

How it's made. Built from the MISR instrument on NASA's Terra satellite, which views each spot from nine different camera angles in four colors, with these yearly statistics summarized from its detailed measurements.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying air pollution and how airborne particles affect sunlight and climate over the long term.

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 span1999-12-01 → 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

MIL3YAEN_004 is the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) Level 3 Component Global Aerosol product in netCDF format 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 degrees by 0.5 degrees. 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 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

mil3yaen_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="MIL3YAEN",
    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.