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Full catalog/sentinel-5p-l2-aer-ai-nrti
sentinel-5p-l2-aer-ai-nrti·dataset

Global smoke and dust haze index, fast (Copernicus)

Sentinel-5P Level 2 Ultraviolet Aerosol Index (NRTI)
atmosphere ESA ESA Copernicus active
In plain English

What it measures. A global, high-resolution map of the ultraviolet aerosol index, which flags airborne particles that absorb sunlight, such as smoke, desert dust, and volcanic ash. Higher values mean thicker absorbing haze.

How it's made. Derived from TROPOMI ultraviolet measurements on ESA Copernicus's Sentinel-5P satellite, processed to Level-2 and delivered in near-real-time within hours.

How & where you'd use it. Helps track wildfire smoke plumes, dust storms, and volcanic ash clouds as they spread, supporting air-quality alerts and aviation safety warnings.

What's measured

SentinelCopernicusESASatelliteGlobalAtmosphereL2AER-AINRTIEUEC

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2018-04-30 → ongoing
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90

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

This Collection provides Sentinel-5P Level-2 AER AI products, which contains high-resolution imagery of the UV Aerosol Index (UVAI), also called the Absorbing Aerosol Index (AAI).

Get the data

copernicus_access.py
# ESA Copernicus Data Space — open STAC API (free account)
from pystac_client import Client

cat = Client.open("https://stac.dataspace.copernicus.eu/v1")
search = cat.search(
    collections=["sentinel-5p-l2-aer-ai-nrti"],   # add _cog or _nc for a format variant
    bbox=(-10, 35, 30, 60),             # your area (W,S,E,N)
    datetime="2024-01-01/2024-12-31",
)
items = list(search.items())            # then read assets with rioxarray / xarray
Browsing the Copernicus STAC is open; downloading bytes needs a free Copernicus Data Space account.