PACE OCI Level-2 Regional Aerosol Optical Properties, Unified Aerosol Algorithm (UAA) Algorithm - Near Real-time (NRT) Data, version 3.2

The Ocean Biology DAAC produces near real-time (NRT) products using the best-available combination of ancillary data from meteorological and ozone data. As such, the inputs and the calibration used are less than optimal. Near real-time products provide a snapshot of the data during a short time period within a single orbit. The AER_UAA suite provides aerosol optical properties (AOP), retrieved using the Unified Aerosol Algorithm (UAA). Core variables include measures that describe aerosol loading, size partitioning, and absorption. A companion product in the same family provides the UV Absorbing Aerosol Index (UVAI_UAA). Typical uses include air-quality and climate analyses, aerosol context for ocean-color atmospheric correction, trend studies, and model evaluation; users should refer to per-file metadata/flags for quality screening and wavelength availability. Core geophysical variables in this suite include: - Aerosol_Optical_Depth — Aerosol optical depth at multiple wavelengths (unitless) - AAOD — Average aerosol optical depth (unitless) - AerosolLayerHeight — Aerosol layer height (km) - AerosolSingleScattAlbedo — Aerosol single scattering albedo (unitless) - NUV_AerosolIndex — Near-UV aerosol index (unitless) - CloudOpticalDepth — Cloud optical depth (unitless) - CloudFraction — Radiative/derived cloud fraction (unitless; 0–1) - l2_flags — Level-2 Processing Flags (bitmask)