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VIIRS/SNPP Dark Target Aerosol L2 6-Min Swath 6km

Metadata Updated: August 21, 2025

The SNPP/VIIRS L2 Dark Target Aerosol 6-Min L2 Swath 6 km product, short-name XAERDT_L2_VIIRS_SNPP is provided at 6-km spatial resolution (at-nadir) and a 6-minute cadence that typically yields about 130 granules over the daylit hours of a 24-hour period. The SNPP/VIIRS L2 collection record spans from January 2019 through December 2022.The XAERDT_L2_VIIRS_SNPP product is a part of the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO)–Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Dark Target Aerosol project under NASA’s Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, led by Robert Levy, uses a special version of the MODIS Dark Target (DT) aerosol retrieval algorithm to produce Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and other aerosol parameters derived independently from seven sensor/platform combinations, where 3 are in GEO and 4 are in LEO. The 3 GEO sensors include Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABI) on both GOES-16 (GOES-East) and GOES-17 (GOES-West), and Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on Himawari-8. The 4 LEO sensors include MODIS on both Terra and Aqua, and VIIRS on both Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20. Adding the LEO sensors reinforces a major goal of this project, which is to render a consistent science maturity level across DT aerosol products derived from both types and sources of orbital satellites.The XAERDT_L2_VIIRS_SNPP product, in netCDF4 format, contains 45 Science Data Set (SDS) layers that include 8 geolocation and 37 geophysical SDSs.For more information consult LAADS product description page at:https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/missions-and-measurements/products/XAERDT_L2_VIIRS_SNPPOr, Dark Target aerosol team Page at: https://darktarget.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 21, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date August 21, 2025
Publisher NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/HBSL/BISB/MODAPS;NASA/GSFC/SED/ESD/HBSL/BISB/LAADS;UWI-MAD/SSEC/ASIPS
Maintainer
Identifier 10.5067/MEaSUREs/GLDTA/XAERDT_L2_VIIRS_SNPP.001
Data Last Modified 2025-08-07
Category Earth Science
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 280b151b-702d-4fb0-8717-d255fedc5176
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Old Spatial {"NorthBoundingCoordinate":90,"WestBoundingCoordinate":-180,"EastBoundingCoordinate":180,"SouthBoundingCoordinate":-90},"CARTESIAN"
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 07d16d6f2623d0c3a2af720e23e96025666de4335d598451df9fa349106595aa
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial

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