Aura MLS

Temperature

Contact: Michael Schwartz

Temperature plays central roles throughout atmospheric science. It is a key parameter in the radiative balance of the atmosphere.

Temperature at a given pressure determines density and thus buoyancy, driving dynamics on all scales. Temperature controls chemical reaction rates and radiative transfer. Temperature is critically important in the hydrological cycle, controlling of cloud formation and the distribution of humidity.

MLS measurements of atmospheric composition require knowledge of temperature, but at the frequencies of MLS observations, thermal emission is roughly linear in gas temperature, so small fractional errors in inferred absolute temperature generally lead to correspondingly small errors in inferred constituent abundance.

How it is part of MLS Science Objectives

Temperature measurements are vitally important for addressing questions of radiative balance involved in climate change. Upper tropospheric temperature is particularly important to climate feedbacks involving the regulation of humidity and clouds.

Some models show temperature in the mesosphere to be particularly sensitive to climate change. Temperatures required for the formation of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) are at the extreme low end of those found in the northern polar winter.

PSCs play multiple roles in the catalytic destruction of ozone, and here MLS mission objectives of understanding stratospheric ozone layer stability and climate change are linked through temperature.

How EOS MLS measures Temperature

MLS temperature is retrieved primarily frombands near O2 spectral lines at 118GHz and 239GHz that aremeasured with MLS radiometers R1A/B and R3, respectively. Thee isotopic 239GHz line is the primary source of temperature information in the troposphere, while the 118GHz line is the primary source of temperature in the stratosphere and above.

Quick Product Information for data version v5

• Swath Name: Temperature
• Status Flag: Only use profiles for which the Status field is an even number.
• Useful Range: 261 - 0.00046 hPa
• DAAC Short Name: ML2T
• Precision: See v5 data quality document.
• Quality Threshold: See v5 data quality document.
• Convergence Threshold: <1.03

Download Aura MLS Temperature v5 data