OCO-3 Level 2 geolocated XCO2 retrievals results, physical model, Retrospective Processing V11r (OCO3_L2_Standard)

Version 11r is the current version of the data set. Older versions will no longer be available and are superseded by Version 11r.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory -3 (OCO-3) was deployed to the International Space Station in May, 2019. It is technically a single instrument, almost identical to OCO-2.

The Orbiting Carbon Observatory is the first NASA mission designed to collect space-based measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide with the precision, resolution, and coverage needed to characterize the processes controlling its buildup in the atmosphere.

OCO-3 incorporates three high-resolution spectrometers that make coincident measurements of reflected sunlight in the near-infrared CO2 near 1.61 and 2.06 micrometers and in molecular oxygen (O2) A-Band at 0.76 micrometers. The three spectrometers have different characteristics and are calibrated independently.

Oxygen-A Band cloud screening algorithm is one of the primary cloud screening tools implemented in the operational OCO processing pipeline. The algorithm was introduced and applied to early GOSAT data with further analysis performed on OCO-2 simulations.

The OCO ABO2 algorithm employs a fast Bayesian retrieval to estimate surface pressure and surface albedo from high resolution spectra of the molecular oxygen (O2) A-band, near 0.765 µm. The radiative transfer forward model (FM) assumes a clear-sky condition, i.e. Rayleigh scattering only, such that differences between the modeled and measured radiances are apparent when the measurement scene contains cloud or aerosol.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field	Value
Maintainer	Earthdata Forum
Last Updated	November 5, 2026, 08:38 (UTC)
Created	April 1, 2025, 18:14 (UTC)
Identifier	10.5067/L4Y1YYH4CI4R
Modified	2026-11-02T22:15:59Z
Theme	{"Earth Science"}
accessLevel	public
bureauCode	{026:00}
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harvest_source_id	b99e41c6-fe79-4c19-bbc3-9b6c8111bfac
harvest_source_title	Science Discovery Engine
license	https://www.usa.gov/government-works
programCode	{026:000}
publisher	NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/TISL/GESDISC
resource-type	Dataset
source_datajson_identifier	true
source_hash	11e61d77da0167e6bcaef2f7c592138dd1eaf9d5bd49f46d5f34da5b4011e208
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spatial	["GEODETIC", [{"WestBoundingCoordinate": -180, "NorthBoundingCoordinate": 90, "EastBoundingCoordinate": 180, "SouthBoundingCoordinate": -90}]]
temporal	2019-08-06/2026-11-02