Nitrogen dioxide air pollution (Sentinel-5P, fine resolution)
What it measures. Maps nitrogen dioxide pollution in the lower atmosphere at fine spatial detail. Nitrogen dioxide comes largely from traffic, power plants, and other combustion, so it traces human air pollution.
How it's made. Retrieved from sunlight measurements by the TROPOMI instrument on Europe's Sentinel-5P satellite, with modeling used to separate pollution near the ground from natural ozone higher up.
How & where you'd use it. Widely used to map air quality, spot pollution hotspots over cities and industry, and watch how emissions change over time.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2019-08-06 → 2021-07-01
- Measured bySentinel-5P (TROPOMI)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
- StatusCOMPLETE
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__NO2____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. The TROPOMI retrieval of total and tropospheric NO2, is based on the DOMINO approach, a DOAS retrieval, a pre-calculated air-mass factor (AMF) look-up table, and a data assimilation/chemistry transport model for the separation of the stratospheric and tropospheric contributions to the NO2 column. It also include many retrieval developments of the European Quality Assurance for Essential Climate Variables (QA4ECV) project.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="S5P_L2__NO2____HiR",
version="1",
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
- ESA Sentinel-5P End User License Agreement VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ESA Sentinel Latest Mission Status Reports VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Access the data via the OPeNDAP protocol. USE SERVICE API
- Access the data via HTTPS. GET DATA
- README Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Use the Earthdata Search to find and retrieve data sets across multiple data centers. GET DATA
- Algorithm Theoretical Basis Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Product User Manual Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION