Total ozone overhead (Aura)
What it measures. The total amount of ozone in the whole column of air overhead, measured along the satellite's orbit at about 13-by-24 km detail, plus many supporting and quality variables.
How it's made. Retrieved from the OMI instrument on the Aura satellite using a technique that reads how ozone absorbs specific ultraviolet wavelengths; each file covers the sunlit part of one orbit.
How & where you'd use it. Used to monitor the protective ozone layer, track the ozone hole, and study atmospheric chemistry.
What's measured
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 second release of Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) Version 003 OMI/Aura Level-2 Total Column Ozone Data Product OMDOAO3 is now available from the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) for the public access. The data were processed in late 2011 using Algorithm or PGE version 1.2.3 and released in March 2012. OMI provides two total column ozone products based on two different algorithms. This level-2 global total column ozone product at the pixel resolution (13x24 km at nadir), is based on the Differential Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) fitting technique that essentially uses the OMI UV radiance values between 331.1 and 336.1 nm. In addition to the total ozone column this product also contains auxiliary , derived and ancillary input parameters e.g. ozone slant column density, ozone ghost column density, air mass factor, scene reflectivity, radiance over the DOAS fit window, root mean square of DAOS fit, cloud fraction, cloud radiance, cloud pressure, terrain height, geolocation, viewing angles and quality flags. The shortname for this Level-2 OMI total column ozone product is OMDOAO3. The lead scientist for this product is Dr. J. Pepijn Veefkind. The OMDOAO3 product files are stored in the version 5 Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5). Each file contains data from the day lit portion of an orbit (approximately 53 minutes) and is approximately 11 MB in size. There are approximately 14 orbits per day.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="OMDOAO3",
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. Official links
- Access the data via HTTPS. GET DATA
- Use the Earthdata Search to find and retrieve data sets across multiple data centers. GET DATA
- Access the data via the OPeNDAP protocol USE SERVICE API
- README Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- OMI Data User's Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- OMI Algorithm Theoretical Basis Documents VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- File Specification Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- PUBLICATIONS VIEW RELATED INFORMATION