TES/Aura L3 H2O Monthly Gridded V004

TL3H2OM_4 is the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES)/Aura Level 3 Water Vapor Monthly Gridded Version 4 data product. TES was an instrument aboard NASA's Aura satellite and was launched from California on July 15, 2004. Data collection for TES is complete. This data product consists of monthly atmospheric temperature and volume mixing ratios (VMRs) for the Water Vapor atmospheric species, which are provided at 2 degree latitude by 4 degree longitude spatial grids and at a subset of TES standard pressure levels.

The TES Science Data Processing L3 subsystem interpolated L2 atmospheric profiles collected in a Global Survey onto a global grid uniform in latitude and longitude to provide a 3-D representation of the distribution of atmospheric gasses. Daily and monthly averages of L2 profiles and browse images are available. The L3 standard data products are composed of L3 HDF-EOS grid data. A separate product file was produced for each different atmospheric species. TES obtained data in two basic observation modes: Limb or Nadir; Nadir observations, which point directly to the surface of the Earth, are different from limb observations, which are pointed at various off-nadir angles into the atmosphere. The product file may contain, in separate folders, limb data, nadir data, or both folders may be present. Specific to L3 processing were the terms Daily and Monthly representing the approximate time coverage of the L3 products. However, the input data granules to the L3 process are complete Global Surveys; in other words a Global Survey was not split in relation to time when input to the L3 processes even if they exceed the usual understood meanings of a day or month. More specifically, Daily L3 products represented a single Global Survey (approximately 26 hours) and Monthly L3 products represent Global Surveys that are initiated within that calendar month. The data granules defined for L3 standard products were daily and monthly.