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Full catalog/OMIAuraAER
OMIAuraAER·v1·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke in the air (Aura)

OMI/Aura Near UV Aerosol Index, Optical Depth and Single Scattering Albedo 1-Orbit L2 13x24km
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2
In plain English

What it measures. Tracks airborne particles like haze, dust, and smoke, reporting how much sunlight they block and absorb, plus related cloud information. It uses ultraviolet light the human eye can't see to spot these particles over land.

How it's made. Built from near-ultraviolet observations by the OMI instrument on NASA's Aura satellite, processed into per-orbit measurements at roughly 13x24 km resolution.

How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers monitor air pollution, track dust storms and wildfire smoke, and study how tiny airborne particles affect climate over decades.

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 INDEX

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2004-10-01 → 2023-05-04
  • Measured byAura (OMI)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • 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

As part of the NASA's Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, this projects describes a multi-decadal Fundamental Climate Data Record (FCDR) of calibrated radiances as well as an Earth System Data Record (ESDR) of aerosol properties over the continents derived from a 32-year record of satellite near-UV observations by three sensors. The OMI/Aura Near UV (version 1) Aerosol Index, Optical Depth and Single Scattering Albedo data product consists of aerosol absorption optical depth, aerosol optical depth, aerosol single scattering albedo, cloud fraction, cloud optical depth, refractive index, radiance, reflectivity and residue at approximately 13x24km. This product also contains ancillary data for ocean corrected surface albedo and terrain pressure. These Level-2 data are stored in the Hierarchical Data Format 5 (HDF5) and are available from the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC).

Get the data

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

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OMIAuraAER",
    version="1",
    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.