Data coverage
AIRS is a facility instrument whose goal is to support climate research and improve weather forecasting Launched into Earth-orbit on May 4, 2002, the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, AIRS, moves climate research and weather prediction into the 21st century. AIRXAMAP The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. The AIRS Granule Map Product consists of images of granule coverage in PDF and JPG format. The images are daily ones but updated every 6 minutes to capture any new available granule. Granules are assembled by ascending, descending, in north and south hemisphere, and the maps are in global cylindrical projection and satellite projection for better view. AIRIBRAD WARNING: On 2021/09/23 the EOS Aqua executed a Deep Space Maneuver (DSM). In the DSM, the spacecraft is turned such that the normal Earth field of regard is deep space. The thermal impact of the DSM caused a shift of the centroids of spectral response functions (SRF) of about 1% of the width of the SRF, equivalent to a frequency shift of 9 parts per million. This shift is reflected in the “spectralfreq” parameter (observed frequencies) in the L1b v5 files for each 6 minute granule. The magnitude of the effect on brightness temperatures (BT) depends on the spectral gradient of each channel. Maximum BT shifts are approximately +- 0.5 K, although many channels experience far smaller BT shifts. Approximately 1803 channels have BT shifts of less than 0.1 K and 575 channels are now shifted in BT by more than 0.1 K, while 231 of these channels have BT shifts greater than 0.2 K. Users of the L1b v5 product who are concerned that these shifts may impact their science investigations and applications are encouraged to switch to the AIRS L1c v6.7.4 product, which, among many other improvements, converts the spectra to a fixed frequency grid. END OF WARNING. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. The AIRS Infrared (IR) level 1B data set contains AIRS calibrated and geolocated radiances in milliWatts/m^2/cm^-1/steradian for 2378 infrared channels in the 3.74 to 15.4 micron region of t he spectrum. The AIRS instrument is co-aligned with AMSU-A so that successive blocks of 3 x 3 AIRS footprints are contained within one AMSU-A footprint. The AIRIBRAD005 products are stored in files (often referred to as "granules") that contain 6 minutes of data, 90 footprints across track by 135 lines along track. AIRABRADNRT The AMSU-A Level 1B Near Real Time (NRT) product (AIRABRADNRT005) differs from the routine product (AIRABRAD005) in 2 ways to meet the three hour latency requirements of the Land Atmosphere NRT Capability Earth Observing System (LANCE): (1) The NRT granules are produced without previous or subsequent granules if those granules are not available within 5 minutes, (2) the predictive ephemeris/attitude data are used rather than the definitive ephemeris/attitude. The consequences of these differences are described in the AIRS Near Real Time (NRT) data products document. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a grating spectrometer (R = 1200) aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. The AMSU-A instrument is co-aligned with AIRS so that successive blocks of 3 x 3 AIRS footprints are contained within one AMSU-A footprint. AMSU-A is primarily a temperature sounder that provides atmospheric information in the presence of clouds, which can be used to correct the AIRS infrared measurements for the effects of clouds. This is possible because non-precipitating clouds are for the most part transparent to microwave radiation, in contrast to visible and infrared radiation which are strongly scattered and absorbed by clouds. AMSU-A1 has 13 channels from 50 - 90 GHz and AMSU-A2 has 2 channels from 23 - 32 GHz. The AIRABRADNRT005 products are stored in files (often referred to as "granules") that contain 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints across track by 45 lines along track. AIRIBQAPNRT The AIRS Level 1B Near Real Time (NRT) product (AIRIBQAPNRT005) differs from the routine product (AIRIBQAP005) in 2 ways to meet the three hour latency requirements of the Land Atmosphere NRT Capability Earth Observing System (LANCE): (1) The NRT granules are produced without previous or subsequent granules if those granules are not available within 5 minutes, (2) the predictive ephemeris/attitude data are used rather than the definitive ephemeris/attitude. The consequences of these differences are described in the AIRS Near Real Time (NRT) data products document. The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a facility instrument aboard the second Earth Observing System (EOS) polar-orbiting platform, EOS Aqua. In combination with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) and the Humidity Sounder for Brazil Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB), AIRS constitutes an innovative atmospheric sounding group of visible, infrared, and microwave sensors. AIRS data will be generated continuously. Global coverage will be obtained twice daily (day and night) on a 1:30pm sun synchronous orbit from a 705-km altitude. The AIRS IR Level 1B QA Subset contains Quality Assurance (QA) parameters that a user of may use to filter AIRS IR Level 1B radiance data to create a subset of analysis. QA parameters indicate quality of granule-per-channel, scan-per-channel, field of view, and channel and should be accessed before any data of analysis. It also contains "glintlat", "glintlon", and "sunglintdistant" that users can use to check for possibility of solar glint contamination. AIRVBRADNRT The AIRS Visible/Near Infrared (VIS/NIR) Level 1B Near Real Time (NRT) product (AIRVBRADNRT005) differs from the routine product (AIRVBRAD005) in 2 ways to meet the three hour latency requirements of the Land Atmosphere NRT Capability Earth Observing System (LANCE): (1) The NRT granules are produced without previous or subsequent granules if those granules are not available within 5 minutes, (2) the predictive ephemeris/attitude data are used rather than the definitive ephemeris/attitude. The consequences of these differences are described in the AIRS Near Real Time (NRT) data products document. The AIRS VIS/NIR level 1B data set contains visible and near-infrared calibrated and geolocated radiances in W/m^2/micron/steradian for 4 channels in the 0.4 to 1.0 um region of the spectrum. The spectral range of the VIS/NIR channels are as follows: Channel 1 0.41 um - 0.44 um, Channel 2 0.58 um - 0.68 um, Channel 3 0.71 um - 0.92 um, Channel 4 0.49 um - 0.94 um. The AIRVBRADNRT005 products are stored in files (often referred to as "granules") that contain 6 minutes of data, 90 footprints across track by 135 lines along track. The VIS/NIR granules are only produced in the daytime so there will always be fewer VIS/NIR granules than Infrared or microwave granules. AIRVBQAPNRT The AIRS Level 1B Near Real Time (NRT) product (AIRVBQAPNRT005) differs from the routine product (AIRVBQAP005) in 2 ways to meet the three hour latency requirements of the Land Atmosphere NRT Capability Earth Observing System
Access & permitted use
Review the publisher’s documentation for availability, eligibility and permitted uses, including commercial analysis, model training and redistribution.
Creative Commons BY 4.0
Need help sourcing data?
Tell us your required fields, population, geography and time period. We can review suitable sources and licensing options.
Request sourcing help