Air temperature and humidity by altitude (Aqua MODIS, 5 km)
What it measures. Profiles of the atmosphere's temperature and water vapor at 20 heights, plus total column water vapor, total ozone, and several measures of atmospheric stability, at 5-kilometer spacing in mostly clear-sky areas.
How it's made. Derived from the MODIS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite, processed into short five-minute swath segments.
How & where you'd use it. Useful for weather analysis, gauging atmospheric stability and moisture, and supporting forecasting and climate studies.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2002-07-04 → ongoing
- Measured byAqua (MODIS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- FormatsHDF-EOS
- 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
The MODIS/Aqua Temperature and Water Vapor Profiles 5-Min L2 Swath 5km (MYD07_L2) product consists of a numbers of parameters related to atmospheric stability, atmospheric temperature and moisture profiles, total atmospheric water vapor, and total ozone. All of these parameters are produced for both daytime and nighttime conditions at 5-km pixel resolution when at least 9 Field Of View (FOV) are cloud free. The MODIS total-ozone burden is an estimate of the total-column tropospheric and stratospheric ozone content. The MODIS atmospheric stability consists of three daily Level 2 atmospheric stability indices. The Total Totals (TT), the Lifted Index (LI), and the K index (K) are each computed using the infrared temperature- and moisture-profile data, also derived as part of MYD07. The MODIS temperature and moisture profiles are produced at 20 vertical levels. The MODIS atmospheric water-vapor product is an estimate of the total tropospheric column water vapor made from integrated MODIS infrared retrievals of atmospheric moisture profiles in clear scenes. Additional information is available at: https://modis-atmos.gsfc.nasa.gov/products/atm-profile.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="MYD07_L2",
version="6.1",
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 LAADS Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package. Official links
- The MODIS Atmospheric Profile product version 6 to 6.1 change document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Atmospheric Profile product ATBD VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Search and order products from LAADS website. GET DATA
- Direct access to MYD07_L2 C6.1 data set. GET DATA
- Direct access to product's OPeNDAP directory USE SERVICE API
- Earthdata Search allows users to search, discover, visualize, refine, and access NASA Earth Observation data. GET DATA