Summary

Description

ML2CO is the EOS Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) standard product for carbon monoxide derived from radiances measured by the 640 GHz radiometer. The current version is 2.2. Data coverage is complete from August 8, 2004 to current. Spatial coverage is near-global (-82° to +82° latitude), with each profile spaced 1.5° or ~165 km along the orbit track (roughly 15 orbits per day). The recommended useful vertical range is between 215 and 0.00464 hPa, and the vertical resolution is about 6 km. Users of the ML2CO data product should read section 3.5 of the EOS MLS Level 2 Version 2.2 Quality Document for more information (http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/data/v2-2_data_quality_document.pdf). Users are encouraged to register with the MLS science team at https://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/forms/reguser.php to obtain updates and information about this data product. The data are stored in the version 5 EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5), which is based on the version 5 Hierarchical Data Format, or HDF5. Each file contains two swath objects (one with profile data, the other with column data), each with a set of data and geolocation fields, swath attributes, and metadata. The data fields include the geophysical parameter values and precision (standard deviation), convergence values, 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.