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Full catalog/OML1BIRR
OML1BIRR·v003·dataset

How much sunlight the Sun sends us (Aura)

OMI/Aura Level 1B Solar Irradiances V003 (OML1BIRR) at GES DISC
heliosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 1B active
In plain English

What it measures. Calibrated measurements of how much sunlight the Sun emits across ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, averaged from the instrument's direct views of the Sun.

How it's made. Recorded by the Ozone Monitoring Instrument on NASA's Aura satellite, calibrated and processed into solar irradiance measurements using a quartz diffuser to view the Sun.

How & where you'd use it. A reference input used alongside Earth-viewing measurements to track atmospheric composition; mostly used by scientists as a calibration baseline rather than directly.

What's measured

SUN-EARTH INTERACTIONS › SOLAR ACTIVITY › SOLAR IRRADIANCE › UV AND VISIBLE SOLAR IRRADIANCES AND PRECISIONS

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2004-10-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byAura (OMI)
  • Processing levelLevel 1B
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Monitor solar activity and space weather
  • Track flares, the solar wind and geomagnetic storms
Official description

The OMI Level 1B solar irradiance product is the radiometrically calibrated and geolocated measurements of the UV and Visible channels of the spectral solar irradiance. It is the averaged measurements of the solar irradiances over a single solar observation in the wavelength ranges of UV1 (264-311 nm, 159 channels), UV2 (307-383 nm, 557 channels) and VIS (349-504 nm, 751 channels). The data contain solar measurement products for both the global and the spatial zoom-in mode. This product only contains measurements obtained with the quartz volume diffuser and provides average of the individual measurements made along track to average out the solar elevation dependent bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) features of the diffuser. The shortname for this OMI Level-1B Product is OML1BIRR. The lead algorithm scientists for this product is Dr. Marcel Dobber from the Roayl Netherlands Meteorological Institude (KNMI). OMI calibrated and geolocated radiances for the UV and Visible channels, spectral irradiances, calibration measurements, and all derived geophysical atmospheric products are archived at the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). OML1BIRR files are stored in the HDF4 based EOS Hierarchical Data Format. The radiances for the earth measurements (also referred as signal) and its precision are stored as a 16 bit mantissa and an 8-bit exponent. The signal can be computed using the equation: signal = mantissa x 10^exponent. For the precision, the same exponent is used as for the signal.

Get the data

oml1birr_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OML1BIRR",
    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.