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 L3 support products are similar to the L3 standard products but contain fields which are not fully validated, or are inputs or intermediary values. Because no quality control information is available for some of these fields, values from failed retrievals may be included.

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 Level 3 8-Day Gridded Retrieval Product contains standard retrieval means, standard deviations and input counts. Each file covers an 8-day period, or one-half of the Aqua orbit repeat cycle. The mean values are simply the arithmetic means of the daily products, weighted by the number of input counts for each day in that grid box. The geophysical parameters have been averaged and binned into 1 x 1 deg grid cells, from -180.0 to +180.0 deg longitude and from -90.0 to +90.0 deg latitude. For each grid map of 4-byte floating-point mean values there is a corresponding 4-byte floating-point map of standard deviation and a 2-byte integer grid map of counts. The counts map provides the user with the number of points per bin that were included in the mean and can be used to generate custom multi-day maps from the daily gridded products. The thermodynamic parameters are: Skin Temperature (land and sea surface), Air Temperature at the surface, Profiles of Air Temperature and Water Vapor, Tropopause Characteristics, Column Precipitable Water, Cloud Amount/Frequency, Cloud Height, Cloud Top Pressure, Cloud Top Temperature, Reflectance, Emissivity, Surface Pressure, Cloud Vertical Distribution. The trace gases parameters are: Total Amounts and Vertical Profiles of Carbon Monoxide, Methane, and Ozone. The actual names of the variables in the data files should be inferred from the Processing File Description 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 AIRS Only Level 3 8-Day Gridded Retrieval Product contains standard retrieval means, standard deviations and input counts. Each file covers an 8-day period, or one-half of the Aqua orbit repeat cycle. The mean values are simply the arithmetic means of the daily products, weighted by the number of input counts for each day in that grid box. The geophysical parameters have been averaged and binned into 1 x 1 deg grid cells, from -180.0 to +180.0 deg longitude and from -90.0 to +90.0 deg latitude. For each grid map of 4-byte floating-point mean values there is a corresponding 4-byte floating-point map of standard deviation and a 2-byte integer grid map of counts. The counts map provides the user with the number of points per bin that were included in the mean and can be used to generate custom multi-day maps from the daily gridded products. The thermodynamic parameters are: Skin Temperature (land and sea surface), Air Temperature at the surface, Profiles of Air Temperature and Water Vapor, Tropopause Characteristics, Column Precipitable Water, Cloud Amount/Frequency, Cloud Height, Cloud Top Pressure, Cloud Top Temperature, Reflectance, Emissivity, Surface Pressure, Cloud Vertical Distribution. The trace gases parameters are: Total Amounts and Vertical Profiles of Carbon Monoxide, Methane, and Ozone. The actual names of the variables in the data files should be inferred from the Processing File Description 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. This product is similar to AIRX2SUP. However, it contains science retrievals that use the HSB. Because the HSB instrument lived only from September 2002 through January 2003 when it terminally failed, the data set covers these five months only. The Support Product includes higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product, plus intermediate outputs (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution simplifies the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than that in the Standard Product profiles. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product is generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data with 30 footprints cross track by 45 scanlines of AMSU-A data or 135 scanlines of AIRS and HSB data. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

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. This product is similar to AIRX2SUP. It is a new product produced using AIRS IR only because the radiometric noise in AMSU channel 4 started to increase significantly (since June 2007). The Support Product includes higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product, plus intermediate outputs (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution simplifies the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than that in the Standard Product profiles. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product is generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

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 Support Products include higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product plus intermediate output (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 pressure levels between 1100 and .016 mb. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data. This normally corresponds to approximately 1/15 of an orbit but exactly 45 scanlines of AMSU-A data or 135 scanlines of AIRS and HSB data. The Level 2 retrieval products and climatology CO2 are assumed as the initial state for the Vanishing Partial Derivative (VPD) retrieval algorithm that separately determines the tropospheric CO2 mixing ratio. The AIRS Level 2 tropospheric CO2 product is the average of the solutions for a 2 x 2 array of adjacent AIRS Level 2 retrieval spots, covering a 90 km x 90 km area at nadir. Retrievals for which the solutions for the 2 x 2 arrays satisfy a spatial coherence QA that requires agreement of the separate retrievals to be within 2 ppm in an RMS sense are included in the standard product. Retrievals that fail this QA test are included in the support product.

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 Support Product includes higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product plus intermediate output (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 pressure levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution simplifies the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than in the Standard Product profiles. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance, or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product is generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

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. This product is similar to AIRX2RET. However, it contains science retrievals that use the HSB. Because the HSB instrument lived only from September 2002 through January 2003 when it terminally failed, the data set covers these five months only. The AIRS Standard Retrieval Product consists of retrieved estimates of cloud and surface properties, plus profiles of retrieved temperature, water vapor, ozone, carbon monoxide and methane. Estimates of the errors associated with these quantities is also part of the Standard Product. The temperature profile vertical resolution is 28 levels total between 1100 mb and 0.1 mb, while moisture profile is reported at 14 atmospheric layers between 1100 mb and 50 mb. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. There are 240
granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

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 Standard Retrieval Product consists of retrieved estimates of cloud and surface properties, plus profiles of retrieved temperature, water vapor, ozone, carbon monoxide and methane. Estimates of the errors associated with these quantities are also be part of the Standard Product. The temperature profile vertical resolution is 28 levels total between 1100 mb and 0.1 mb, while moisture profile is reported at 14 atmospheric layers between 1100 mb and 50 mb. The horizontal resolution is 50 km. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 lines along track. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Level 2 Near Real Time (NRT) Support Retrieval (AIRS-only) product (AIRS2SUP_NRT_006) differs from the routine product (AIRS2SUP_006) in four 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, (3) if the forecast surface pressure is unavailable, a surface climatology is used, and (4) no ice cloud properties retrievals are performed. 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. This product is product produced using AIRS IR only because the radiometric noise in AMSU channel 4 started to increase significantly (since June 2007). The Support Product includes higher vertical resolution profiles of the quantities found in the Standard Product, plus intermediate outputs (e.g., microwave-only retrieval), research products such as the abundance of trace gases, and detailed quality assessment information. The Support Product profiles contain 100 levels between 1100 and .016 mb; this higher resolution simplifies the generation of radiances using forward models, though the vertical information content is no greater than that in the Standard Product profiles. The intended users of the Support Product are researchers interested in generating forward radiance or in examining research products, and the AIRS algorithm development team. The Support Product is generated at all locations as Standard Products. An AIRS granule has been set as 6 minutes of data, 30 footprints cross track by 45 scanlines. There are 240 granules per day, with an orbit repeat cycle of approximately 16 day.