AIRS/Aqua L3 Monthly Quantization in Physical Units (AIRS-only) 5 degrees x 5 degrees V006 (AIRS3QPM) 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. AIRS/Aqua Level 3 monthly quantization product is in physical units (AIRS Only). The quantization products (QP) are distributional summaries derived from the Level-2 standard retrieval products (of swath type) to provide a more comprehensive set of statistical summaries than the traditional means and standard deviation. The QP products combine the Level 2 standard data parameters over grid cells of 5 x 5 deg spatial extent for temporal periods of a month. They preserve the multivariate distributional features of the original data and so provide a compressed data set that more accurately describes the disparate atmospheric states that is in the original Level-2 swath data set. The geophysical parameters are: Air Temperature and Water Vapor profiles (11 levels/layers), Cloud fraction (vertical distribution).