Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/rss1tpwnv7r01
rss1tpwnv7r01·v7R01·dataset

Total water vapor over the ocean, monthly (microwave)

RSS MONTHLY 1-DEG MICROWAVE TOTAL PRECIPITABLE WATER NETCDF V7R01
atmosphere NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 3 netCDF-4netCDF-3
In plain English

What it measures. The total amount of water vapor in the air column over the world's oceans, averaged month by month. It also includes long-term averages, anomaly maps showing wetter or drier patches, and trends over time.

How it's made. Built by merging measurements from a long list of microwave radiometers flying on different satellites, carefully cross-calibrated so they read consistently, onto a 1-degree global grid.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking how atmospheric moisture is changing over decades, studying the water cycle, and watching climate trends over the oceans.

What's measured

Atmosphere › Atmospheric Water Vapor › Water Vapor Indicators › Water VaporSpectral/Engineering › Microwave › Brightness TemperatureAtmosphere › Atmospheric Water Vapor › Water Vapor Indicators › Total Precipitable Water

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1988-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byAqua (AMSR-E) · DMSP 5D-2/F9 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-3/F17 (SSMIS) · DMSP 5D-2/F10 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F15 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F11 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F14 (SSM/I) · GCOM-W1 (AMSR2) · CORIOLIS (WINDSAT) · DMSP 5D-3/F16 (SSMIS) · DMSP 5D-2/F12 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F8 (SSM/I) · DMSP 5D-2/F13 (SSM/I)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -60, 180, 60
  • FormatsnetCDF-4, netCDF-3
  • 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 Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) Monthly 1-degree Microwave Total Precipitable Water (TPW) netCDF dataset V7R01 provides global total columnar water vapor values, or TPW, over ocean areas. This dataset contains monthly, 1-degree TPW means, a 12-month climatology made using 1988 to 2007 data, monthly anomaly maps, a trend map with associated global and tropical TPW time series and trends, and a time-latitude plot. The 1 degree TPW dataset is a merged ocean product constructed using version 7 (V7) passive microwave geophysical ocean products made publicly available by RSS (www.remss.com). TPW values for this dataset were acquired from the following satellite microwave radiometers: SSM/I F08 through F15, SSMIS F16 and F17, AMSR-E, AMSR-2, and WindSat. The radiometers used to construct this dataset were were inter-calibrated at the brightness temperature level, while the V7 ocean products were produced using a consistent processing methodology across sensors.

Get the data

rss1tpwnv7r01_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="rss1tpwnv7r01",
    version="7R01",
    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 GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.