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Full catalog/TEMPO_NO2_L3_NRT
TEMPO_NO2_L3_NRT·vV02·dataset

Nitrogen dioxide pollution, near-real-time (TEMPO)

TEMPO gridded NO2 tropospheric and stratospheric columns V02 (NRT) (PROVISIONAL)
atmosphere NASA LARC_CLOUD Level 3 active netCDF-4
In plain English

What it measures. Maps of nitrogen dioxide, a gas tied to traffic and industrial pollution, laid out on a regular grid across the region TEMPO watches. It separates the amount near the ground (the part that affects the air we breathe) from the amount high up in the stratosphere.

How it's made. Built by stitching together a full east-to-west scan from the TEMPO instrument and using a faster, streamlined version of its processing so results are ready quickly.

How & where you'd use it. Because it's available within about 2-3 hours of observation, it's handy for tracking pollution as it happens, supporting air-quality alerts and rapid monitoring rather than long-term studies.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › NITROGEN COMPOUNDS › NITROGEN DIOXIDEATMOSPHERE › AIR QUALITY › NITROGEN OXIDES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2025-09-17 → ongoing
  • Measured byIS-40e (TEMPO)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • 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

Nitrogen dioxide Level 3 (PROVISIONAL) files provide trace gas information on a regular grid covering the TEMPO field of regard for nominal TEMPO observations. Level 3 files are derived by combining information from all Level 2 files constituting a TEMPO East-West scan cycle. The files are provided in netCDF4 format, and contain information on tropospheric, stratospheric and total nitrogen dioxide vertical columns, ancillary data used in air mass factor and stratospheric/tropospheric separation calculations, and retrieval quality flags. The re-gridding algorithm uses an area-weighted approach. The nitrogen dioxide near real-time (NRT) files are produced using a fast version of the TEMPO baseline retrieval processor. The TEMPO NRT products are useful for applications with low-latency requirements (<2-3 hours after observation is taken). The NRT processing optimizes radiance calibration, image navigation and registration, and cloud and trace gas retrievals for rapid processing, while ensuring that product quality is sufficient for most NRT applications.

Get the data

tempo_no2_l3_nrt_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="TEMPO_NO2_L3_NRT",
    version="V02",
    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 LARC_CLOUD
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.