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Full catalog/TRPSCRCH2OM3D
TRPSCRCH2OM3D·v1·dataset

Formaldehyde in the air, monthly, 3D

TROPESS Chemical Reanalysis CH2O Monthly 3-dimensional Product V1 (TRPSCRCH2OM3D) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 4 active
In plain English

What it measures. Monthly concentrations of formaldehyde in the air at many altitudes, giving a 3D picture of this gas through the lower atmosphere.

How it's made. Produced by a chemical reanalysis that blends measurements from multiple satellite sensors into a model, covering 2005 to 2021 on a roughly 1-degree grid at 27 altitude levels.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for studying air pollution and atmospheric chemistry, since formaldehyde is tied to emissions from vegetation, fires, and human activity.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › FORMALDEHYDE

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2005-01-01 → ongoing
  • Measured byREANALYSIS MODELS (NOT APPLICABLE)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • 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

The TROPESS Chemical Reanalysis CH2O Monthly 3-dimensional Product contains vertical concentrations of formaldehyde. The data are part of the Tropospheric Chemical Reanalysis v2 (TCR-2) for the period 2005-2021. TCR-2 uses JPL's Multi-mOdel Multi-cOnstituent Chemical (MOMO-Chem) data assimilation framework that simultaneously optimizes both concentrations and emissions of multiple species from multiple satellite sensors. The data files are written in the netCDF version 4 file format, and each file contains a year of data at monthly resolution, and a spatial resolution of 1.125 x 1.125 degrees at 27 pressure levels between 1000 and 60 hPa. The principal investigator for the TCR-2 data is Miyazaki, Kazuyuki.

Get the data

trpscrch2om3d_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="TRPSCRCH2OM3D",
    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.