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Full catalog/OMAEROZ
OMAEROZ·v003·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke in the air, zoomed (OMI)

OMI/Aura Aerosol product Multi-wavelength Algorithm Zoomed 1-Orbit L2 Swath 13x12km V003 (OMAEROZ) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. Information about tiny airborne particles, haze, dust, and smoke, in a zoomed-in finer-resolution mode. It includes how much the particles dim sunlight (aerosol optical depth), how much light they absorb versus scatter, what type they are, and roughly how high they sit.

How it's made. Comes from the OMI instrument on NASA's Aura satellite, using a method that compares up to 20 wavelength bands of light; this is a Level-2 product, and the zoomed observations are only made about once a month.

How & where you'd use it. Used to study air quality and how aerosols from natural sources and human activity affect the atmosphere and climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL EXTINCTION › AEROSOL SINGLE SCATTERING ALBEDOATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTHATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › UV AEROSOL INDEXATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › VIS AEROSOL INDEX

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2004-10-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byAura (OMI)
  • 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

The reprocessed OMI/Aura Level-2 Zoomed Aerosol data product OMAEROZ at 13x12 km resolution have been made available from the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) for public access in March 2012. There are two Level-2 Aura OMI aerosol products OMAERO and OMAERUV. The OMAERUV product uses the near-UV algorithm. The OMAERO (13x24 km resolution) and OMAEROZ (13x12 km resolution) is based on the multi-wavelength algorithm that uses up to 20 wavelength bands between 331 nm and 500 nm. The multi-wavelength retrieval algorithm is developed by the KNMI OMI Team Scientists. Drs. Deborah Stein-Zweers, Martin Sneep and Pepijn Veefkind are now the key investigators of this product. The OMAEROZ products contain Aerosol Optical Depths, Single Scattering Albedo, Aerosol Type, Aerosol Layer Height, and other intermediate and ancillary parameters and geolocation information. The OMAEROZ files are stored in the version 5 EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5). Each file contains data from the day lit portion of an orbit (~53 minutes). OMAEROZ data files are based on Zoomed Level 1B radiance observations which are made once a month. Thus there is one day of zoomed data (approximately 14 orbits) per month. The maximum file size for the OMAEROZ data is about 11 Mbytes. A Readme document containing brief algorithm description and known data quality related issues and file specifications are provided by the OMAERO Algorithm lead.

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OMAEROZ",
    version="003",
    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.