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Full catalog/TROPOMAER
TROPOMAER·v1·dataset

Haze, dust and smoke in the air (Sentinel-5P)

TROPOMI/Sentinel-5P Near UV Aerosol Optical Depth and Single Scattering Albedo L2 1-Orbit Snapshot 7.5 km x 3 km
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 2 active
In plain English

What it measures. Measures airborne particles like haze, dust, and smoke, reported as how much they dim incoming light, how much they absorb versus scatter, the height of the aerosol layer, and an ultraviolet haze index.

How it's made. Derived from the TROPOMI instrument on the European Sentinel-5P satellite using near-ultraviolet observations, at roughly 7.5x3 km detail, as part of a long multi-sensor climate data record.

How & where you'd use it. Used to track smoke from wildfires, dust storms, and pollution, and to study how absorbing particles affect air quality and climate over the continents.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL EXTINCTION › AEROSOL SINGLE SCATTERING ALBEDOATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTHATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › UV AEROSOL INDEX

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

As part of the NASA's Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, this projects describes a multi-decadal Fundamental Climate Data Record (FCDR) of calibrated radiances as well as an Earth System Data Record (ESDR) of aerosol properties over the continents derived from a 32-year record of satellite near-UV observations by three sensors. The Corpenicus Sentinel-5P TROPOMI Near UV (version 1) Aerosol Optical Depth and Single Scattering Albedo data product consists of aerosol absorption optical depth, aerosol total optical depth, aerosol layer height, aerosol UV index, and aerosol single scattering albedo at approximately 7.5kmx3km. This product also contains ancillary data for ocean corrected surface albedo and terrain pressure. Data since July 19, 2022 (orbit 24688) has been processed with the most recent calibrated L1B radiance data (version 2.0.1). Data prior to July 19, 2022, data was processed with version 2.0.0 L1B radiances. Soon, the entire record will be reprocessed using version 2.0.1 L1B data. Any upgrades will be posted here. These Level-2 data are stored in the NetCDF-4 format and are available from the Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC).

Get the data

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

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