Abstract:
The OMI-Aura level-2G daily global gridded (0.25x0.25 deg) near-UV Aerosol data product OMAERUVG based on the enhanced algorithm is available from the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Aura/OMI/omaeruvg_v003.shtml
The NASA Aura satellite sensors are tracking important atmospheric pollutants from space since its ... launch in July, 2004. The Ozone Monitoring Instrument(OMI), one of the four Aura satellite sensors with its 2600 km viewing swath width provides daily global measurements of four important US Environmental Protection Agency criteria pollutants (Tropospheric ozone, Nitrogen dioxide,Sulfur dioxide and Aerosols from biomass burning and industrial emissions, HCHO, BrO, OClO and surface UV irradiance.
OMI is a contribution of the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs (NIVR)in collaboration with Finish Meterological Institute (FMI), to the US EOS-Aura Mission. The principal investigator's (Dr. Pieternel Levelt) institute is the KNMI (Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute).
This Level-2G daily global gridded product OMAERUVG is based on the pixel level OMI Level-2 Aerosol product OMAERUV. The OMAERUV product is based on the enhanced TOMS version-8 algorithm that essentially uses the ultraviolet radiance data. OMI provides two aerosol products OMAERUV and OMAERO at the pixel resolution (13 x 24 km at nadir) that are based on two different algorithms.
OMAERUVG data product is a special Level-2 gridded product where pixel level products are binned into 0.25x0.25 degree global grids. It contains the data for all scenes that have observation time betweeen UTC times of 00:00:00 and 23:59:59.9999 . All data pixels that fall in a grid box are saved without averaging. Scientist can apply data filtering scheme of their choice and create new gridded products. The GES DISC developed interactive tool Giovanni (http://giovanni.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ) provides web based capabilities to browse and explore these data.
The OMAERUVG data product contains almost all parameters that are contained in OMAERUV. For example, in addition to the extinction and absorption optical depth it also contains effective Lambertian scene-reflectivity, UV aerosol index, cloud fraction, cloud pressure, ozone below clouds, terrain height, geolocation, solar and satellite viewing angles, and extensive quality flags.
OMAERUVG files are stored in EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5). Each file contains daily data from approximately 15 orbits mapped on the Global 0.25x0.25 deg Grids. The maximum file size for the OMERUVG data product is about 50 Mbytes.
Quality
This is the new public release (fall 2011) of OMAERUVG aerosol product in collection 003. Major updates have been made in the retrieval algorithms. For details, please see the README document available from the data product site: http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Aura/OMI/omaeruvg_v003.shtml
Use Constraints
This Data set (third public release in collection 3) is better than the earlier released products but it is not fully validated yet. Before using it in any trend analysis please contact algorithm team lead for the current known problems and updates http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Aura/OMI/omaeruvg_v003.shtml
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Schoeberl, M.R., A.R. Douglass, E. Hilsenrath, P.K. Bhartia, J. Barnett, J. Gille, R. Beer, M. Gunson, J. Waters, P.F. Levelt,P. DeCola, "The EOS Aura Mission," EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 85 , Number 18, 4 May 2004. [Preprint] http://aura.gsfc.nasa.gov/project/eos-agu-aura-article.pdf
