Water vapor in the air, detailed (Suomi-NPP)
What it measures. Shows how much water vapor is in the air at different heights, with uncertainty estimates. Water vapor drives weather and is the atmosphere's leading greenhouse gas.
How it's made. Derived from the CrIS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite using the TROPESS estimation method, covering early 2021 until that processing ended in May 2021.
How & where you'd use it. Useful for weather and climate research, humidity and water-cycle studies, and testing atmospheric models.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2021-02-01 → 2023-05-18
- Measured bySuomi-NPP (CrIS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- 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 CrIS-SNPP L2 Water for Forward Stream, Standard Product contains the vertical distribution of the retrieved atmospheric state of water vapor (H2O), formal uncertainties, and diagnostic information measured by the CrIS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite. The forward stream standard product is global for the time period from 2021-02-01 to 2021-05-21, when the CrIS-SNPP processing was discontinued. The NASA TRopospheric Ozone and Precursors from Earth System Sounding (TROPESS) project, uses an optimal estimation algorithm, known as the MUlti-SpEctra, MUlti-SpEcies, Multi-SEnsors (MUSES). The data files are written in the netCDF version 4 file format, and each file contains one day of data. The data have a spatial resolution of 14 km (CrIS nadir FOV), and are reported at 17 vertical levels from the surface to 0.1 hPa. The principal investigator for the TROPESS project is Kevin W. Bowman.
Get the data
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc") # free Earthdata Login
results = earthaccess.search_data(
short_name="TRPSDL2H2OCRSFS",
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. Official links
- Access the data via HTTPS. GET DATA
- Access the data via the OPeNDAP protocol. USE SERVICE API
- README Document VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- User's Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- ATBD VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- TROPESS Mission Guide VIEW RELATED INFORMATION
- Use the Earthdata Search to find and retrieve data sets across multiple data centers. GET DATA