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OCO2_L2_Standard·v11.2r·dataset

Carbon dioxide in the air (OCO-2)

OCO-2 Level 2 geolocated XCO2 retrievals results, physical model Retrospective Processing V11.2r (OCO2_L2_Standard) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. The amount of carbon dioxide in a vertical column of air, reported as the average concentration of CO2 over a spot on Earth's surface.

How it's made. Derived from sunlight that bounces off Earth and is split into its colors by three spectrometers on the OCO-2 satellite; an algorithm then works backward from those measurements to estimate the CO2.

How & where you'd use it. Tracks where carbon dioxide builds up and where it's absorbed, helping researchers understand the natural and human sources and sinks that shape Earth's changing climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-11-30 → ongoing
  • Measured byOCO-2 (OCO-2)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • 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

Version 11.2r is the current version of the data set. Older versions will no longer be available and are superseded by Version 11.2r. 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. This collection is the output from the algorithm retrieving the column-averaged CO2 dry air mole fraction XCO2 and other quantities from the spectra collected by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2).

Get the data

oco2_l2_standard_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OCO2_L2_Standard",
    version="11.2r",
    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.