UARS Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS L3)

General Info

Title:	UARS Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS L3)
Type:	Data Entity
Sub-Type:	Measurement
Abbreviation:	MLS on uars
Publication State:	published
The publication state of this metadata: 'old' - for redundant records; 'working' - for new/in progress records; 'published' - for records approaching maturity, which may still change, but should be available via the discovery services; and 'Published' for mature records that are unlikely to change and should be available via the discovery services.

URI:	http://badc.nerc.ac.uk/view/badc.nerc.ac.uk__ATOM__dataent_MLS

Summary
A brief description of the data.

Instrument on board the UARS satellite which measured global ClO, O3, H2O, temperature and SO2. Data are version 4 and public (gridded in time or latitude along the satellite track) between 80S - 80N, approximately 10-60 km in the vertical, from October 1991 to June 1997.

Content
The actual data being described by this document. NB, in the case of data granules, this content may just be a reference to an ingested CSML or CDML file.

Introduction

The Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) is a satellite-borne instrument making limb sounding measurements of atmospheric composition at microwave frequencies. It was built by an instrument team based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and launched on the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) on the 12th September 1991. It began collecting data on 19th September 1991 and is still operating. The PI is Joe Waters.

The instrument measures thermal emission from the Earth's limb, from which vertical profiles of chlorine monoxide (ClO), ozone (O₃), water vapour (H₂O) sulphur dioxide (SO₂) and atmospheric temperature are derived. HNO₃ profiles are also available for some periods in the Version 4 data.

The data coverage extends from 80°S to 80°N, but at any one time this is restricted to 34°S to 80°N or 34°N to 80°S. In the vertical, measurements are made between approximately 10 and 60 km.

Data Access

This dataset is public and can be accessed from the BADC archives

Availability of data and file format

The BADC holds the UARS MLS data version 4. The data consist of along-track vertical profiles that have been interpolated on to a regular latitude grid (level 3AL) or a regular time grid (3AT). The data are provided in IEEE binary files.

Help on transferring data: where to find the files, what software is available etc.
Online access to MLS data files for transfer via the World Wide Web. You can also transfer the data using FTP.
Software to read the data.
Third party software provided by other users to manipulate and further process the data, including graphics software.

Links to further information and references

We provide original documents by the MLS team as well as shorter help files compiled by the BADC team.

Documentation index.
MLS Team documentation: this takes you to a BADC directory containing a full set of copies of JPL's MLS documentation.
BADC documentation on the MLS instrument and data products.
References: a list of over 70 papers on MLS and related topics.
MLS home page at JPL,
EOSDIS DAAC at NASA Goddard, which is the prime archive of the UARS data and also offers UARS data on a set of CD-ROMS.
An archive of UARS plots is also maintained by the UARS team at Goddard.

Citation

Date of citation

Who to contact

If you have queries about these pages or about obtaining the MLS data from the BADC then you should contact BADC Support. Your query should be answered within one working day. When follow-up work is required, the BADC support will carry out the work as quickly and efficiently as possible, and in any case, the user will be kept informed of progress.

Our list of contacts for further information on MLS includes the PI Joe Waters and his team at JPL, and Dr. Bob Harwood and the UK MLS team at Edinburgh.

Lineage
Summary of the origins of the dataset, e.g.: "Dataset produced from NASA MODIS instrument on Terra and collected at the University of York's groundstation 1999-2003 and a copy provided to NEODC in June 2007".

Data files acquired as is directly from NASA (mirror transfer).

Quality Statement
Description of the relative quality of the dataset.

Data quality controlled by NASA. Please see dataset associated documentation.

Author
The principal author of the actual underlying data. Only one author can be specified per atom; if there are multiple authors, these should be specified as 'contributors'. NB, an atom MUST have an author specified.

Name	email
NASA

Online References
Online references with a specific relationship to the data being described here. NB, if links are supplied they must be valid and include the transport protocol - e.g. 'http://blah.co.uk'. Also, note, three online references can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Relation	Title
Download	MLS L3 Data Directory
Logo	MLS Logo
Documentation	BADC Doc: MLS Data Helpfile
Documentation	BADC Doc: MLS List of References
Documentation	BADC Doc: Indexed MLS documentation
Documentation	MLS at JPL Homesite

Parent Data Entity
Define the parent of this record. There should probably only be one parent, but this is not enforced.

No data specified at present

Sub Data Entities
Lists all entities which have the current entity as their parent.

None

Associated Deployments

Parameters - summary

WATERVAPOR	ATMOSPHERICWATERVAPOR	ATMOSPHERE	EARTH SCIENCE
NULL	AIRTEMPERATURE	ATMOSPHERICTEMPERATURE	CHLORINEMONOXIDE
HALONSANDHALOGENS	ATMOSPHERICCHEMISTRY	SULFURDIOXIDE	SULFURCOMPOUNDS
METHANE	CARBONANDHYDROCARBONCOMPOUNDS	OZONE	OXYGENCOMPOUNDS

Parameters - details
Parameters to describe the data - with vocab URL and term IDs for further classification. Note, three parameters can be added at once; after these are added a further three may be specified - and so on.

Label	Vocab Term URL	Vocab Term ID
WATERVAPOR	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ATMOSPHERICWATERVAPOR	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
ATMOSPHERE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P131	NULL
EARTH SCIENCE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P111	GCAT0001
NULL	general_units	0
AIRTEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ATMOSPHERICTEMPERATURE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
CHLORINEMONOXIDE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
HALONSANDHALOGENS	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
ATMOSPHERICCHEMISTRY	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/P141	NULL
SULFURDIOXIDE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
SULFURCOMPOUNDS	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
METHANE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
CARBONANDHYDROCARBONCOMPOUNDS	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
OZONE	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL
OXYGENCOMPOUNDS	http://vocab.ndg.nerc.ac.uk/term/null	NULL

Data Coverage
Summary of the temporal and spatial data coverage for the data.

Spatial coverage
Max Y: 80.0
Min X: -180.0	Max X 180.0
Min Y -80.0

Temporal coverage
Start Date:	1991-09-19
End Date:	1997-06-14

Spatial resolution

No spatial resoultion information available.

Vertical extent

approximately 10-60 km

Responsible Parties
Parties responsible for the metadata - e.g. data curator. Responsible parties can have a role specified to make their function clearer. Multiple responsible parties can be specified.

Role	Name	URI
Data Curator	badc.nerc.ac.uk	http://badc.nerc.ac.uk

Other Info
Other miscellaneous information. Note, update frequency relates to the update frequency of the underlying data, not the metadata.

Dataset language

English

Update frequency

asNeeded

Links and Services
	Downloadable XML version of this record

Not all information in this record may be rendered in this view. Please see the XML version for complete content

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