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OCO2_L1B_Science·v11r·dataset

Calibrated raw light spectra (OCO-2)

OCO-2 Level 1B calibrated, geolocated science spectra, Retrospective Processing V11r (OCO2_L1B_Science) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 1B
In plain English

What it measures. Calibrated measurements of how much near-infrared sunlight, split finely by wavelength, the satellite's spectrometers recorded, in bands tuned to carbon dioxide and oxygen, with the exact location tagged for each reading.

How it's made. Produced by the OCO-2 satellite's processing chain, which converts the instrument's raw counts from its three high-resolution spectrometers into calibrated light measurements.

How & where you'd use it. A low-level building-block input: scientists feed these spectra into later processing to work out atmospheric carbon dioxide, rather than using them directly.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDESPECTRAL/ENGINEERING › INFRARED WAVELENGTHS › INFRARED RADIANCE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-09-06 → 2024-04-01
  • Measured byOCO-2 (OCO-2)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • StatusCOMPLETE

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

Version 11r is the current version of the data set. Older versions will no longer be available and are superseded by Version 11r. The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is the first NASA mission designed to collect space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to characterize the processes controlling its buildup in the atmosphere. The OCO-2 project uses the LEOStar-2 spacecraft that carries a single instrument. It incorporates three high-resolution spectrometers that make coincident measurements of reflected sunlight in the near-infrared CO2 near 1.61 and 2.06 micrometers and in molecular oxygen (O2) A-Band at 0.76 micrometers. The three spectrometers have different characteristics and are calibrated independently. Their raw data numbers (DN) are delivered correlated in time to the Level 1B process as Level 1A products. Each band has 1016 spectral elements, although some are masked out in the L2 retrieval.This product is the output from the Level 1B process. It converts the raw instrument data numbers into calibrated radiances. This conversion is based upon files of instrument characteristics and algorithm parameters that may vary over time. In addition to calibrated radiances, the Level 1B output products have geolocation information recorded for each measurement for use in higher-level processes. This is the retrospective processing where the calibration data is estimated from the full timeseries of data (before, during, and after the measurements), and is expected to be of slightly higher quality.

Get the data

oco2_l1b_science_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OCO2_L1B_Science",
    version="11r",
    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.