Aerosol

The sections below contain information on the aerosol data types; including links to the data, output attributes, quality and purpose of the data. Click on the pictures for links to the data.

Aerosols affect the Earth's climate, directly warming or cooling the Earth or through interactions with clouds and rainfall. How aerosols interact with clouds is one the most uncertain aspects of the climate. In addition, aerosols impact the air quality and can cause respiratory and health problems to humans. To this end, an understanding of the global distribution of aerosol, the amount and type and how this is changing is important. The ATSR series of instruments provide high accuracy well calibrated aerosol data from 1995 - 2012. See the below links for different aerosol data.

CCI ORAC (Optimal Retrieval of Aerosol and Cloud)

  • Format: L3C, Hierarchical Data Format, L3 in netCDF format
  • Quality: Each retrieval includes pixel uncertainty estimate
  • Digital Object Identify (DOI) number: N/A
  • Date of most recent version: 21 May 2015
  • Access: Public access
  • Supporting data: This aerosol algorithm is consistent with the algorithm used in the Cloud CCI.
  • GlobAEROSOL

  • Format:L2 and L3 data in netCDF format
  • Quality: This data set has been superseded by ORAC CCI aerosol data set (above)
  • Digital Object Identify (DOI) number: N/A
  • Date of most recent version: 10 December 2007
  • Access: Public data
  • Supporting data: N/A
  • Aerosol CCI

  • Format:L2 and L3 data in netCDF format
  • Quality: Each product includes a pixel-wise error characterisation
  • Digital Object Identify (DOI) number:
  • Date of most recent version: 27 August 2020
  • Access: Unrestricted online access (password provided)
  • Supporting data: Supporting documentation
  • For more information on ATSR aerosol data please contact caroline.poulsen@stfc.ac.uk