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Full catalog/OMPS_NPP_NMCLDRR_L2
OMPS_NPP_NMCLDRR_L2·v2·dataset

Cloud height and how much sky clouds cover (Suomi-NPP)

OMPS-NPP L2 NM Cloud Pressure and Fraction swath orbital V2 (OMPS_NPP_NMCLDRR_L2) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. For each satellite pass, how much of the scene is covered by cloud and how high those clouds sit (given as pressure, a stand-in for altitude).

How it's made. Retrieved from the OMPS Nadir-Mapper instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite using a reflectivity-based cloud method, delivered orbit by orbit.

How & where you'd use it. A supporting input for atmospheric retrievals, especially helping correct measurements of ozone and other gases for the influence of clouds.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD FRACTIONATMOSPHERE › CLOUDS › CLOUD PROPERTIES › CLOUD TOP PRESSURE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2011-11-13 → ongoing
  • Measured bySuomi-NPP (OMPS)
  • 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 OMPS-NPP L2 NM Cloud Pressure and Fraction swath orbital product provides effective cloud fraction and effective cloud pressure retrievals from the Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite (OMPS) Nadir-Mapper (NM) instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite. The cloud pressure algorithm retrieves effective cloud pressus, a.k.a optical centroid pressure (OCP) and effective cloud fraction (ECF) using a concept of Mixed Lambert Equivalent Reflectivity (MLER) at 354.1 nm. Each granule contains data from the daylight portion of each orbit measured for a full day. Spatial coverage is global (-90 to 90 degrees latitude), and there are about 14.5 orbits per day each measuring three limb profiles spaced approximately 250 km in the cross-track direction. The profiles are measured from the ground up to about 80 km with a vertical resolution of the retrieved profiles of approximately 1.8 km. The files are written using the Hierarchical Data Format Version 5 or HDF5.

Get the data

omps_npp_nmcldrr_l2_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OMPS_NPP_NMCLDRR_L2",
    version="2",
    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.