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Full catalog/ML3DBHCL
ML3DBHCL·v005·dataset

Hydrogen chloride high in the atmosphere, daily (MLS, Aura)

MLS/Aura Level 3 Daily Binned Hydrogen Chloride (HCl) Mixing Ratio on Assorted Grids V005 (ML3DBHCL) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 3 active
In plain English

What it measures. The amount of hydrogen chloride high in the atmosphere and how it varies with altitude, reported as daily near-global averages on vertical grids.

How it's made. Derived mainly from the 640 GHz microwave signal measured by the MLS instrument on NASA's Aura satellite, binned into a daily Level-3 product.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study stratospheric chemistry, including the chlorine compounds tied to ozone depletion.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › HALOCARBONS AND HALOGENS › HYDROGEN CHLORIDE

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

ML3DBHCL is the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) daily binned on various vertical grids product for hydrogen chloride (HCl) derived from radiances measured primarily by the 640 GHz radiometer. The data version is 5.1. Spatial coverage is near-global (-82 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 100 to 0.316 hPa, and the vertical resolution is between 3 and 6 km. Users of the ML3DBHCL data product should read chapter 4 and section 3.10 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 two grid objects (profile and column data), each with a set of data and geolocation fields, grid attributes, and metadata.

Get the data

ml3dbhcl_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ML3DBHCL",
    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.