AIRS/Aqua L3 Monthly Standard Physical Retrieval (AIRS+AMSU+HSB) 1 degree x 1 degree V006 (AIRH3STM) at GES DISC

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 AIRX3STM. However, it contains science retrievals that use the Humidity Sounder for Brazil (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 Level 3 Monthly Gridded Retrieval Product contains standard retrieval means, standard deviations and input counts. Each file covers a calendar month. 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 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.