Summary

Description

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) is a facility instrument 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. AIRS data will be generated continuously. Global coverage will be obtained twice daily (day and night) on a 1:30pm sun synchronous orbit from a 705-km altitude. The AIRS Visible/Near Infrared (VIS/NIR) Level 1B QA Subset contains Quality Assurance (QA) parameters that a may use of filter AIRS VIS/NIR Level 1B radiance data to create a subset of analysis. It includes "state" that user should check before using any VIS/NIR Level 1B data radiance and "glintlat", "glintlon", and "sun_glint_distant" that users can use to check for possibility of solar glint contamination. AIRS VIS/NIR Level 1B radiance data can be found in AIRVBRAD. (The Shortname for this product is AIRVBQAP_NRT) Coverage: Global, Twice Daily (Daytime and Nighttime) Resolution: 2.3 km IFOV at nadir Spectral Range: Four channels, from 0.4 - 1.0 um: Wavelengths at 50% peak response: Channel 1 0.41 um - 0.44 um Channel 2 0.58 um - 0.68 um Channel 3 0.71 um - 0.92 um Channel 4 0.49 um - 0.94 um