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Full catalog/ML2IWC
ML2IWC·v005·dataset

How much ice is in high clouds (MLS, Aura)

MLS/Aura Level 2 Cloud Ice Product V005 (ML2IWC) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. How much ice is suspended in high-altitude clouds, profiled at different heights in the upper atmosphere.

How it's made. Derived from microwave energy measured by the Microwave Limb Sounder on NASA's Aura satellite.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists understand high clouds and how they affect Earth's climate and energy balance. It is a specialized product mainly used in atmospheric research.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD MICROPHYSICS › CLOUD LIQUID WATER/ICE

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

ML2IWC is the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) standard product for cloud ice water content derived from radiances measured by the 240 GHz radiometer. The data version is 5.0. 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 from 215 to 82.5 hPa, and the vertical resolution is about 3 km. Users of the ML2IWC data product should read sections 3.15 and 3.16 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

ml2iwc_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ML2IWC",
    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.