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Description

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 quantization products (QP) are distributional summaries derived from the Level-2 standard retrieval products (of swath type) to provide a more comprehensive set of statistical summaries than the traditional means and standard deviation. The QP products combine the Level 2 standard data parameters over grid cells of 5 x 5 deg spatial extent for temporal periods of a month. They preserve the multivariate distributional features of the original data and so provide a compressed data set that more accurately describes the disparate atmospheric states that is in the original Level-2 swath data set. The geophysical parameters are: Air Temperature and Water Vapor profiles (11 levels/layers), Cloud fraction (vertical distribution).

Product Summary

Platforms
Aqua
Instruments
AIRS ,
AMSU-A
Spatial Extent

N: 90 S: -90 E: 180 W: -180

Geographic Region
GLOBAL
Coordinate System
CARTESIAN
Granule Spatial Representation
CARTESIAN
Temporal Extent
2002-09-01 to 2016-10-01
Data Partner
Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (formerly Goddard DAAC), Terrestrial Information Systems Laboratory, Earth Sciences Division, Science and Exploration Directorate, Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA (NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/GESDI
Concept ID
C1238517296-GES_DISC
Data State
COMPLETE
Number of Files/Granules
169
Processing Level
3
Published
Updated
Science Keywords
Air Temperature ,
Water Vapor Profiles ,
Cloud Top Pressure ,
Cloud Vertical Distribution

Citation

Citation is critically important for dataset documentation and discovery. This dataset is openly shared, without restriction, in accordance with the EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance.

Copy Citation

AIRS Science Team, & Texeira, J. (2013). Aqua AIRS Level 3 Quantized Monthly Product using AIRS and AMSU without HSB V6 [Data set]. NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/AQUA/AIRS/DATA328 Date Accessed: 2025-12-14

Documents

READ-ME

Variables

Variables are a set of physical properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something. For example, temperature and pressure are variables of the atmosphere. Parameters and variables can be used interchangeably. Variable level attributes provide individual information for each variable.

The Name in this table is the variable name. Fill value indicates missing or undefined data points in a variable. Valid range is the range of values the variable can store. Scale factor is used to increase or decrease the size of an object and can be used to correct for distortion. For questions on a specific variable, please use the Earthdata Forum.

Name Description Units Data Type Fill Value Valid Range Scale Factor
ClusterDistortion ClusterDistortion N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
ClusterMeanSquaredError ClusterMeanSquaredError N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
EastLonBound EastLonBound N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
Entropy Entropy N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
GridCellMeanSquaredError GridCellMeanSquaredError N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
LatCenter LatCenter degrees_north float32 0 N/A N/A
LonCenter LonCenter degrees_east float32 0 N/A N/A
MaxNumClusters MaxNumClusters level int32 N/A N/A N/A
NormalizedValues NormalizedValues N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
NorthLatBound NorthLatBound N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
NumClusters NumClusters N/A int16 0 N/A N/A
NumDimNorm NumDimNorm level int32 N/A N/A N/A
NumDimPhys NumDimPhys level int32 N/A N/A N/A
NumObsInCluster NumObsInCluster N/A int16 0 N/A N/A
NumPentad NumPentad level int32 N/A N/A N/A
NumTrials NumTrials level int32 N/A N/A N/A
PentadComposition PentadComposition N/A int16 0 N/A N/A
PhysicalValues PhysicalValues N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
SouthLatBound SouthLatBound N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
WestLonBound WestLonBound N/A float32 0 N/A N/A
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