MLS/Aura L2 Ice Water Content - [ ML2IWC ]

Summary

The Aura Microwave Limb Sounder Level 2 Ice Water Content data product (ML2IWC) contains an entire days worth of vertical profile measurments from 15 orbits. MLS provides daily near-global (-82° to +82°) spatial coverage from both the day and night side. Profiles are made every 24.7 seconds, corresponding to 1.5° (~165 km) along the orbit track. Useful vertical coverage is from 215 to 68 hPa, and the vertical resolution is about 3 km (at 12 levels per decade in pressure). Ice Water Content retrievals are made with the 240 GHz radiometer.

• Principle investigator for the MLS instrument is Joe W. Waters.
• Contact persons for Ice Water Content are Dong Wu and Jonathan Jiang.

All of the Aura level 2 product data files are written in HDF-EOS version 5, using the swath model. HDF-EOS5 is based on the version 5 Hierarchical Data Format, or HDF5. Each file contains two swaths (one for profile data and one for column amounts) each with a set of data and geolocation fields, swath attributes, and metadata. For MLS, the data fields include the geophysical parameter values and precision (standard deviation), data quality, and a status flag. The geolocation fields include a time stamp in TAI-93 format (seconds since January 1, 1993), geodetic latitude and longitude, and pressure level values, as well as local solar time, solar zenith angle, line of sight angle, and orbit geodetic angle. There is one file per day for the ML2IWC data product, and the average file size is about 4.1 Mbytes.

The ML2IWC version 1.5 data are available to the public from the GES DISC.

For a list of tools that can read the ML2IWC data files, see the Aura software page. Documentation about MLS data products can be found on the Aura Documentation page.

For more information about the Microwave Limb Sounder, see the MLS home page (NASA/JPL).

GES DISC Help Desk

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References:

Waters, J.W., W.G. Read, L. Froidevaux, R.F. Jarnot, R.E. Cofield, D.A. Flower, G.K. Lau, H.M. Pickett, M.L. Santee, D.L. Wu, M.A. Boyles, J.R. Burke, R.R. Lay, M.S. Loo, N.J. Livesey, T.A. Lungu, G.L. Manney, L.L. Nakamura, V.S. Perun, B.P. Ridenoure, Z. Shippony, P.H. Siegel, R.P. Thurstans, R.S. Harwood, H.C. Pumphrey, M.J. Filipiak, "The UARS and EOS Microwave Limb Sounder Experiments," J. Atmos. Sci. 56, 194 -218, 1999.

Schoeberl, M.R., A.R. Douglass, E. Hilsenrath, P.K. Bhartia, J. Barnett, J. Gille, R. Beer, M. Gunson, J. Waters, P.F. Levelt, P. DeCola, "The EOS Aura Mission," EOS, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 85 , Number 18, 4 May 2004.

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