OMI/Aura Level 2 Sulphur Dioxide (SO2) Trace Gas Column Data 1-Orbit Subset and Collocated Swath along CloudSat V003 (OMSO2_CPR) at GES DISC

The data collection started on August 17, 2004 (orbit 482) and continues to this day with only minor data gaps. The minimum SO2 mass detectable by OMI is about two orders of magnitude smaller than the detection threshold of the legacy Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) SO2 data (1978-2005) [Krueger et al 1995]. This is due to smaller OMI footprint and the use of wavelengths better optimized for separating O3 from SO2.

The product file, called a data granule, covers the sunlit portion of the orbit with an approximately 2600 km wide swath containing 60 pixels per viewing line. During normal operations, 14 or 15 granules are produced daily, providing fully contiguous coverage of the globe. Currently, OMSO2 products are not produced when OMI goes into the "zoom mode" for one day every 452 orbits (~32 days).

For each OMI pixel we provide 4 different estimates of the column density of SO2 in Dobson Units (1DU=2.69x10^16 molecules/cm2) obtained by making different assumptions about the vertical distribution of the SO2. However, it is important to note that in most cases the precise vertical distribution of SO2 is unimportant. The users can use either the SO2 plume height, or the center of mass altitude (CMA) derived from SO2 vertical distribution, to interpolate between the 4 values: 1)Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) SO2 column (ColumnAmountSO2_PBL), corresponding to CMA of 0.9 km. 2)Lower tropospheric SO2 column (ColumnAmountSO2_TRL), corresponding to CMA of 2.5 km. 3)Middle tropospheric SO2 column, (ColumnAmountSO2_TRM), usually produced by volcanic degassing, corresponding to CMA of 7.5 km, 4)Upper tropospheric and Stratospheric SO2 column (ColumnAmountSO2_STL), usually produced by explosive volcanic eruption, corresponding to CMA of 17 km.

The accuracy and precision of the derived SO2 columns vary significantly with the SO2 CMA and column amount, observational geometry, and slant column ozone. OMI becomes more sensitive to SO2 above clouds and snow/ice, and less sensitive to SO2 below clouds. Preliminary error estimates are discussed below (see Data Quality Assessment).

OMSO2 files are stored in EOS Hierarchical Data Format (HDF-EOS5). Each file contains data from the day lit portion of an orbit (53 minutes). There are approximately 14 orbits per day.

The maximum file size for the OMSO2 data product is about 9 Mbytes.