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Full catalog/OMPS_NPP_NMMIEAI_L2
OMPS_NPP_NMMIEAI_L2·v2·dataset

How much haze and smoke are in the air (Suomi-NPP)

OMPS-NPP L2 NM Aerosol Index swath orbital
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. An 'aerosol index' showing how much haze, smoke, and dust are in the air over each spot, plus related measurements like reflectivity and cloud fraction. Higher values flag thicker airborne particles.

How it's made. Produced from the OMPS Nadir-Mapper instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite, which compares brightness at two ultraviolet wavelengths over each daylit orbit; this is now NASA's official aerosol index product.

How & where you'd use it. Used to track smoke from wildfires, dust storms, and volcanic ash as they move across the globe, supporting air-quality and hazard monitoring.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › UV AEROSOL INDEX

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2011-11-07 → 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 Aerosol Index swath orbital product provides aerosol index values from the Ozone Mapping and Profiling Suite (OMPS) Nadir-Mapper (NM) instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite. This is now the official NASA aerosol index product, replacing the aerosol index found in the OMPS-NPP L2 NM Total Ozone product. The aerosol index is derived from normalized radiances using 2 wavelength pairs at 340 and 378.5 nm. Additionally, this data product contains measurements of normalized radiances, reflectivity, cloud fraction, reflectivity, and other ancillary variables. 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 has typically 400 swaths. The swath width of the NM is about 2800 km with 36 scenes, or pixels, with a footprint size of 50 km x 50 km at nadir. The data are written using the Hierarchical Data Format Version 5 or HDF5.

Get the data

omps_npp_nmmieai_l2_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="OMPS_NPP_NMMIEAI_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.