Earth Data School
About
Full catalog/UARIS3AL
UARIS3AL·v010·dataset

Temperature and gases in the upper atmosphere (UARS)

UARS Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS) Level 3AL V010 (UARIS3AL) at GES DISC
atmosphere NASA GES_DISC Level 3
In plain English

What it measures. Daily vertical profiles of air temperature and the amounts of several gases (ozone, water vapor, methane, carbon monoxide and others) high in the atmosphere, from about 15 to 60 km up, plus how much haze is present.

How it's made. Built from infrared emissions measured by the ISAMS instrument aboard NASA's UARS satellite, processed and binned into a daily latitude-by-altitude grid.

How & where you'd use it. Supports studies of how the stratosphere and mesosphere behave, including ozone and the chemistry of the upper atmosphere.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL EXTINCTIONATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC CARBON MONOXIDEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › CARBON AND HYDROCARBON COMPOUNDS › METHANEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › NITROGEN COMPOUNDS › DINITROGEN PENTOXIDEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › NITROGEN COMPOUNDS › NITROGEN DIOXIDEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › NITROGEN COMPOUNDS › NITROUS OXIDEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC CHEMISTRY › OXYGEN COMPOUNDS › ATMOSPHERIC OZONEATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC TEMPERATURE › UPPER AIR TEMPERATUREATMOSPHERE › ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR › WATER VAPOR PROFILES › WATER VAPOR MIXING RATIO PROFILES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span1991-09-26 → 1992-07-29
  • Measured byUARS (ISAMS)
  • Processing levelLevel 3
  • Spatial extent-180, -80, 180, 80
  • 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 Improved Stratospheric and Mesospheric Sounder (ISAMS) Level 3AL data product consists of daily, 4 degree increment latitude-ordered vertical profiles of temperature and concentrations of O3, H2O, CH4, CO, N2O, N2O5, NO2, and aerosol absorption coefficients. The insrument measured infrared molecular emmissions in the spectral region from 4.6 to 16.6 microns. ISAMS was flown on NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) and designed to measure the global temperature and composition profiles in the stratosphere and mesosphere. Limb measurements were made in the altitude range between 15 and 60 km at about 2.5 km resolution. Data were collected between latitude 34S and 80N and 80S and 34N, alternating each satellite yaw cycle of about 36 days. The ISAMS Level 3AL data were processed with the version 10 algorithm, except H2O which is version 9. The ISAMS level 3AL product consists of 10 granules per day. A data granule is one ISAMS species or subtype per day. Data are on the UARS standard pressure levels (in mbars) given by: P(i) = 1000 * 10**(-i/6) for i = 0, 1, 2, ... Each of the 10 ISAMS granules is accompanied by its own additional parameter file, designated as level 3LP. The parameter file, contains the additional ancillary and quality information not found in the 3AL file. The data files are available in a binary record oriented format.

Get the data

uaris3al_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="UARIS3AL",
    version="010",
    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.