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Full catalog/ML3DZN2O
ML3DZN2O·v005·dataset

Nitrous oxide gas levels by latitude, daily (Aura)

MLS/Aura Level 3 Daily Binned Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Mixing Ratio on Zonal and Similar Grids V005 (ML3DZN2O) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 3 active
In plain English

What it measures. Daily measurements of nitrous oxide (N2O) gas in the upper atmosphere, summarized by latitude band and altitude. It reports the gas's concentration averaged around each ring of latitude.

How it's made. Derived from the Microwave Limb Sounder on NASA's Aura satellite, which senses the gas by looking sideways at the atmosphere's edge, then binned onto latitude-and-altitude grids.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study atmospheric chemistry and circulation; tracking N2O helps scientists understand how air moves through the stratosphere. Each file holds a full year of near-global data.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › NITROGEN COMPOUNDS › NITROUS OXIDE

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

ML3DZN2O is the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) daily binned on zonal and assorted vertical grids product for nitrous oxide (N2O) derived from radiances measured primarily by the 640 GHz radiometer (Band 12) until August 6, 2013, after this date using the 190 GHz radiometer (Band 3). The data version is 5.1. Spatial coverage is near-global (-82 to +82 degrees latitude) at 4 degree latitude zonal increments. The recommended useful vertical range is from 68.1 to 0.464 hPa, and the vertical resolution is between 4 and 6 km. Users of the ML3DZN2O data product should read chapter 4 and section 3.17 of the EOS MLS Level 2 Version 5 Quality Document for more information. The data files contain one year of data and are archived in the netCDF4 format, which is also compatible with HDF5 readers and tools. Each file contains four group objects: lat vs pressure zonal mean, lat vs "potential temperature" zonal mean, "equivalent latitude" vs "potential temperature" zonal mean, and vortex average vs "potential temperature". Each group has a set of data (average, min, max, std dev, rms) and geolocation fields, grid attributes, and metadata.

Get the data

ml3dzn2o_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="ML3DZN2O",
    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.