AIRS/Aqua L2 Near Real Time (NRT) Standard Physical Retrieval (AIRS-only) V006 (AIRS2RET_NRT)

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Level 2 Near Real Time (NRT) Standard Physical Retrieval (AIRS-only) product (AIRS2RET_NRT_006) differs from the routine product (AIRS2RET_006) in four ways to meet the three hour latency requirements of the Land Atmosphere NRT Capability Earth Observing System (LANCE): (1) The NRT granules are produced without previous or subsequent granules if those granules are not available within 5 minutes, (2) the predictive ephemeris/attitude data are used rather than the definitive ephemeris/attitude, (3) if the forecast surface pressure is unavailable, a surface climatology is used, and (4) no ice cloud properties retrievals are performed.

The consequences of these differences are described in the AIRS Near Real Time (NRT) data products document. 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.