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Full catalog/ML2CO
ML2CO·v005·dataset

Carbon monoxide high in the atmosphere (Aura)

MLS/Aura Level 2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) Mixing Ratio V005 (ML2CO) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. Profiles of how much carbon monoxide is present high in the atmosphere, from the upper troposphere into the stratosphere, with data running from 2004 to the present.

How it's made. Retrieved from microwave radiation measured by the Aura satellite's Microwave Limb Sounder (its 640 GHz radiometer), giving roughly 15 orbits' worth of profiles per day.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists track how carbon monoxide moves and persists high in the atmosphere, useful for studying pollution transport and atmospheric chemistry.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC CARBON MONOXIDE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2004-08-02 → ongoing
  • Measured byAura (MLS)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -82, 180, 82
  • 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

ML2CO is the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) standard product for carbon monoxide derived from radiances measured by the 640 GHz radiometer. The data version is 5.0. Data coverage is from August 8, 2004 to current. Spatial coverage is near-global (-82 degrees to +82 degrees latitude), with each profile spaced 1.5 degrees or ~165 km along the orbit track (roughly 15 orbits per day). The recommended useful vertical range is between 215 and 0.00564 hPa, and the vertical resolution is about 6 km. Users of the ML2CO data product should read section 3.7 of the EOS MLS Level 2 Version 5 Quality Document for more information. The data are stored in the version 5 EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5), which is based on the version 5 Hierarchical Data Format, or HDF-5. Each file contains two swath objects (profile and column data), each with a set of data and geolocation fields, swath attributes, and metadata.

Get the data

ml2co_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ML2CO",
    version="005",
    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.