Smog-forming chemical (PAN) over West Coast wildfires
What it measures. Tracks peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN), a smog-related chemical, and shows how its amount changes at different heights in the air. The focus is on the continental U.S. during the late-summer to fall 2020 West Coast wildfires.
How it's made. Built from infrared light recorded by the CrIS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite, then run through a math model (called MUSES) that estimates the actual gas amounts rather than reporting raw readings.
How & where you'd use it. Helps researchers study how wildfire smoke creates and moves smog-forming chemicals through the atmosphere, and how that affects air quality far from the fires themselves.
What's measured
Coverage & cadence
- Time span2020-08-02 → 2020-10-26
- Measured bySuomi-NPP (CrIS)
- Processing levelLevel 2
- Spatial extent-150, 20, -40, 60
- 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 Peroxyacetyl Nitrate for West Coast Fires, Standard Product contains the vertical distribution of the retrieved atmospheric state of peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN), formal uncertainties, and diagnostic information measured by the CrIS instrument on the Suomi-NPP satellite. This product focuses on the CONUS region (20N-60N; 150W-40W) for the time period from 2020-08-01 to 2020-10-31, during the outbreak of U.S. West Coast wildfires. 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 16 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="TRPSDL2PANCRSWCF",
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