Nitrogen dioxide air pollution, fast delivery (Sentinel-5P, near real-time)
What it measures. Levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution in the lower atmosphere, measured one orbit at a time at fine spatial detail and delivered quickly - typically within three hours.
How it's made. Produced from the TROPOMI instrument on the Sentinel-5P satellite; this fast version trades the polish of the standard product for speed and is only kept for about ten days.
How & where you'd use it. Meant for rapid air-quality assessment and monitoring; for careful long-term analysis the slower, more refined version is recommended instead.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2025-01-27 → 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
The Sentinel-5P TROPOMI Near Real Time (NRT) Tropospheric NO2 1-Orbit L2 5.5km x 3.5km V2 (S5P_L2__NO2____HiR_NRT) at GES DISC is the near real time version of the offline S5P_L2__NO2____HiR data product. These data are typically available within three hours of measurement as required by the Land Atmosphere NRT Capability Earth Observing System (LANCE). These data are intended for a rapid turnaround assessment and are only archived for up to ten days. Users who require a longer data record, or wish to conduct rigorous analysis should use the offline version of this product S5P_L2__NO2____HiR. 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. Data are stored in individual files, or granules, that contain one orbit of information. The data are stored in netCDF4 data format and files and complete files are ~60 MB.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="S5P_L2__NO2____HiR_NRT",
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. 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