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Full catalog/OCO3_L1B_Science
OCO3_L1B_Science·v11r·dataset

Raw calibrated light spectra (OCO-3)

OCO-3 Level 1B calibrated, geolocated science spectra, Retrospective Processing V11r (OCO3_L1B_Science) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 1B active
In plain English

What it measures. Contains the raw, calibrated light spectra the instrument collected, breaking sunlight reflected from Earth into fine slices of near-infrared color, including bands sensitive to carbon dioxide and oxygen.

How it's made. Generated from the three spectrometers on OCO-3 aboard the International Space Station, at the calibrated-and-located stage before carbon dioxide amounts are calculated.

How & where you'd use it. A low-level input product used mainly by scientists to derive atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements; not typically used directly by the general public.

What's measured

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

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-08-06 → ongoing
  • Measured byISS (OCO-3)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • 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 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 Older versions will no longer be available and are superseded by Version 11r.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 -3 (OCO-3) was deployed to the International Space Station in May, 2019. It is technically a single instrument, almost identical to OCO-2. 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. OCO-3 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. Oxygen-A Band cloud screening algorithm is one of the primary cloud screening tools implemented in the operational OCO processing pipeline. The algorithm was introduced and applied to early GOSAT data with further analysis performed on OCO-2 simulations. The OCO ABO2 algorithm employs a fast Bayesian retrieval to estimate surface pressure and surface albedo from high resolution spectra of the molecular oxygen (O2) A-band, near 0.765 µm. The radiative transfer forward model (FM) assumes a clear-sky condition, i.e. Rayleigh scattering only, such that differences between the modeled and measured radiances are apparent when the measurement scene contains cloud or aerosol.

Get the data

oco3_l1b_science_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OCO3_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.