How much UV reaches the ground (Aura)
What it measures. How much ultraviolet sunlight reaches the ground, including a daily skin-reddening UV dose and dose rate plus brightness at several UV wavelengths. It also reports cloud and ozone amounts that affect UV.
How it's made. Derived from the Aura satellite's Ozone Monitoring Instrument, with each file covering the sunlit part of one orbit.
How & where you'd use it. Useful for public-health UV exposure warnings and for studying how clouds and ozone control UV at the surface.
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 Aura Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) Version 003 Surface UV Irradiance Product (OMUVB) is now available from the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC) for the public access. The shortname for this Level-2 OMI Surface UVB product is OMUVB. The algorithm scientists for this product are: Dr. Jari Hovila, Dr. Antii Arola and Dr. Johanna Taminnen. The OMUVB product contains erythemally weighted daily dose and dose rate, and spectral irradiances at 305, 310, 324, and 380 nm. It also contains quality flags, cloud optical depth, Lambertian Equivalent Reflectivity, Total Column Ozone amount, and other ancillary information. The OMUVB files are stored in the version 5 EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5). Each file contains data from the day lit portion of an orbit (~53 minutes). There are approximately 14 orbits per day. The maximum file size for the OMUVB data product is about 10 Mbytes.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="OMUVB",
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
- 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
- Access the data via the OPeNDAP protocol. USE SERVICE API
- Product Related Links VIEW RELATED INFORMATION