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Full catalog/ML3DBCO
ML3DBCO·v005·dataset

Carbon monoxide in the upper atmosphere, daily map

MLS/Aura Level 3 Daily Binned Carbon Monoxide (CO) Mixing Ratio on Assorted Grids V005 (ML3DBCO) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 3 active
In plain English

What it measures. Daily maps of carbon monoxide amounts high up in the atmosphere, summarized on several vertical grids across nearly the whole globe.

How it's made. Derived from the Microwave Limb Sounder on NASA's Aura satellite, which reads natural microwave emissions, then binned daily into gridded averages with statistics.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists track how carbon monoxide moves through the upper atmosphere, useful for studying air chemistry and large-scale circulation.

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 3
  • 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

ML3DBCO is the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) daily binned on various vertical grids product for carbon monoxide (CO) derived from radiances measured by the 640 GHz radiometer. The data version is 5.1. Data coverage is from August 2, 2005 to current. Spatial coverage is near-global (-82 to +82 degrees latitude) at a spatial resolution of 4 degrees latitude by 5 degrees longitude. The recommended useful vertical range is between 215 and 0.00464 hPa, and the vertical resolution is about 6 km. Users of the ML3DBCO data product should read chapter 4 and section 3.7 of the EOS MLS Level 2 Version 5 Quality Document for more information. The data files are archived in the netCDF4 format, which is also compatible with HDF5 readers and tools. Each file contains six group objects: lat-lon map vs pressure, lat vs pressure zonal mean, lat-lon map vs theta, lat vs theta zonal mean, equivalent lat vs theta zonal mean, and vortex average vs theta. Each group has a set of data (average, min, max, std dev, rms) and geolocation fields, grid attributes, and metadata.

Get the data

ml3dbco_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ML3DBCO",
    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.