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Full catalog/UARHR3AL
UARHR3AL·v011·dataset

Upper-atmosphere winds (old UARS satellite)

UARS High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI) Level 3AL V011 (UARHR3AL) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 3
In plain English

What it measures. Daily vertical profiles of upper-atmosphere winds (both north-south and east-west components), temperature, and oxygen airglow, organized by latitude.

How it's made. Measured by the HRDI instrument on NASA's now-retired UARS satellite, which sensed tiny Doppler color shifts in light to infer wind, spanning the mesosphere and stratosphere.

How & where you'd use it. A historical record for studying winds and dynamics high in the atmosphere; valuable for long-term atmospheric science even though the satellite no longer operates.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › UPPER AIR TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WINDS › UPPER LEVEL WINDS › U WIND COMPONENTATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WINDS › UPPER LEVEL WINDS › V WIND COMPONENTATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION › AIRGLOW

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1991-11-06 → 1999-01-30
  • Measured byUARS (HRDI)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -76, 180, 76
  • 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 High Resolution Doppler Imager (HRDI) Level 3AL data product consists of daily, 4 degree increment latitude-ordered vertical profiles of meridional and zonal wind components, temperature and volume emmission rate of O2. The instrument measured Doppler shifts of spectral lines in the visible and near-IR between 400 and 800 nm. HRDI was flown on NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) and designed to measure winds and other parameters in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere by primarily observing the Doppler shift of emitted light, and in the stratosphere by observing the Doppler shift of atmospheric absorption features. Measurements were made in the mesosphere between 50 and 115 km, and in the stratosphere between 10 and 40 km at about 2.5 km resolution. Data were collected between latitude 40S and 76N and 76S and 40N, alternating each satellite yaw cycle of about 36 days. The HRDI Level 3AL data were processed with the version 11 algorithm. The HRDI level 3AL product consists of 8 granules per day. A data granule is one HRDI species or subtype per day. Data are on the UARS standard altitude levels (in km) given by: z(i) = 5*i for i<=12 z(i) = 60 + (i-12)*3 for 13 <= i <= 32 z(i) = 120 + (i-32)*5 for 33 <= i <= 88 as well as the UARS standard pressure levels (in mbars) given by: P(i) = 1000 * 10**(-i/6) for i = 0, 1, 2, ... The data files are available in a binary record oriented format.

Get the data

uarhr3al_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="UARHR3AL",
    version="011",
    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.