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Full catalog/XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08
XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08·v1·dataset

How hazy the air is with dust and smoke, from Japan's AHI camera on Himawari-8 (10 km detail)

AHI/Himawari-08 Dark Target Aerosol 10-Min L2 Full Disk 10 km
atmosphere NASA LAADS Level 2 netCDF-4
Illustration of what How hazy the air is with dust and smoke, from Japan's AHI camera on Himawari-8 (10 km detail) shows
Illustration of the concept — not real satellite data.
In plain English

What it measures. How much haze, dust, and smoke is hanging in the air, reported as aerosol optical depth (a measure of how much the particles block light) on a roughly 10-km grid, refreshed every 10 minutes across the satellite's full view of Earth.

How it's made. Produced from the Himawari-8 geostationary weather satellite's imager using a version of NASA's MODIS 'Dark Target' method to pull aerosol levels from the imagery.

How & where you'd use it. Useful for tracking air quality, dust storms, and wildfire smoke as they move through the day across the region the satellite watches.

What's measured

ATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL OPTICAL DEPTH/THICKNESS › ANGSTROM EXPONENTATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLSATMOSPHERE › AEROSOLS › AEROSOL PARTICLE PROPERTIES

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2019-01-01 → 2022-12-15
  • Measured byHimawari-8 (AHI)
  • Processing levelLevel 2
  • Spatial extent-180, -90, 180, 90
  • FormatsnetCDF-4
  • StatusACTIVE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The AHI/Himawari-08 Dark Target Aerosol 10-Min L2 Full Disk 10 km product, short-name XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08 is provided at 10-km spatial resolution (at-nadir) and a 10-minute full-disk cadence that typically yields about 142 granules over the daylit hours of a 24-hour period (there are no images produced at 02:20 or 14:20 UTC for navigation purposes). The Himawari-8 platform served in the operational Himawari position (near 140.7°E) between October 2014 and 13 December 2022. Himawari-9 replaced Himawari-8 and is currently operational. The Himawari-8/AHI collection record spans from January 2019 through 12th December 2022. The final 19 days of 2022 (December 13 through 31) are served by L2 products derived from the Himawari-9/AHI instrument. The XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08 product is a part of the Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO)–Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) Dark Target Aerosol project under NASA’s Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, led by Robert Levy, uses a special version of the MODIS Dark Target (DT) aerosol retrieval algorithm to produce Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) and other aerosol parameters derived independently from seven sensor/platform combinations, where 3 are in GEO and 4 are in LEO. The 3 GEO sensors include Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABI) on both GOES-16 (GOES-East) and GOES-17 (GOES-West), and Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) on Himawari-8. The 4 LEO sensors include MODIS on both Terra and Aqua, and VIIRS on both Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20. Adding the LEO sensors reinforces a major goal of this project, which is to render a consistent science maturity level across DT aerosol products derived from both types and sources of orbital satellites. The XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08 product, in netCDF4 format, contains 45 Science Data Set (SDS) layers that include 8 geolocation and 37 geophysical SDSs. For more information consult LAADS [product description page](https://ladsweb.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/missions-and-measurements/products/XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08) or [Dark Target aerosol team Page](https://darktarget.gsfc.nasa.gov/).

Get the data

xaerdt_l2_ahi_h08_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="XAERDT_L2_AHI_H08",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from LAADS
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.