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Full catalog/S5P_L2__AER_LH_HiR
S5P_L2__AER_LH_HiR·v2·dataset

How high haze and smoke layers sit (Sentinel-5P)

Sentinel-5P TROPOMI Aerosol Layer Height 1-Orbit L2 5.5km x 3.5km V2 (S5P_L2__AER_LH_HiR) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. How high in the atmosphere layers of haze and smoke are floating, reported as aerosol layer height, at fairly fine spatial detail.

How it's made. Retrieved from the TROPOMI instrument on the European Sentinel-5P satellite, using a physics model sped up by a neural network to work out the altitude of airborne particles from each orbit's measurements.

How & where you'd use it. Pinpointing the height of smoke plumes from wildfires and dust layers, which matters for aviation safety, air-quality forecasting and understanding how particles affect climate.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLSATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITYATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › SMOGATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › OXYGEN COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC OZONE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2018-04-30 → ongoing
  • Measured bySentinel-5P (TROPOMI)
  • 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

Starting from August 6th in 2019, Sentinel-5P TROPOMI along-track high spatial resolution (~5.5km at nadir) has been implemented. For data before August 6th of 2019, please check S5P_L2__AER_LH_1 data collection. The Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor (Sentinel-5P or S5P) satellite mission is one of the European Space Agency's (ESA) new mission family - Sentinels, and it is a joint initiative between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the ESA. The sole payload on Sentinel-5P is the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), which is a nadir-viewing 108 degree Field-of-View push-broom grating hyperspectral spectrometer, covering the wavelength of ultraviolet-visible (UV-VIS, 270nm to 495nm), near infrared (NIR, 675nm to 775nm), and shortwave infrared (SWIR, 2305nm-2385nm). Sentinel-5P is the first of the Atmospheric Composition Sentinels and is expected to provide measurements of ozone, NO2, SO2, CH4, CO, formaldehyde, aerosols and cloud at high spatial, temporal and spectral resolutions. Copernicus Sentinel-5P TROPOMI aerosol layer height algorithm applies a forward model, which includes DISAMAR (Determining Instrument Specifications and Analyzing Methods for Atmospheric Retrieval, a Layer-Based Orders of Scattering algorithm) to calculate monochromatic reflectance, and also employs a neural network scheme for speedy processor performance. Data retrieval uses the Optimal Estimation Method (OEM) for spectral fitting with various aerosol layer pressures and aerosol optical thicknesses in the Oxygen-A band (758 -770nm). The aerosol baseline model assumes a single uniformly distributed aerosol layer with a fixed pressure thickness and a constant aerosol volume extinction coefficient and single scattering albedo. The aerosol parameterization is particularly suitable for elevated non-scattering aerosols such as volcanic ash, desert dust and biomass burning plume. The product main outputs include the mid-pressure and mid-altitude of aerosol layers, aerosol optical thickness at 760nm, error estimates, and other relevant diagnostics. Starting from orbit #12432 on March 7th of 2020, the S-NPP auxiliary cloud data source used in the aerosol layer height product data processing has been transitioned from the VIIRS Cloud Mask (VCM) into the Enterprise Cloud Mask (ECM).

Get the data

s5p_l2__aer_lh_hir_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="S5P_L2__AER_LH_HiR",
    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.