Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications Aerosol Reanalysis (MERRAero)

NOTE: MERRA production has been discontiued with the completion of analyses through February 29, 2016. MERRA-2 is now available.

The NASA Modern Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications Aerosol Reanalysis (MERRAero) is based on a version of the Goddard Earth Observing System Data Assimilation System version 5 (GEOS-5) model driven by the MERRA meteorological reanalysis (Rienecker et al. 2011). In MERRAero, which covers the period 2002 - present, GEOS-5 is radiatively coupled to the Goddard Chemistry, Aerosol, Radiation and Transport (GOCART) aerosol module and includes assimilation of aerosol optical Depth (AOD) from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard the EOS Aqua and Terra satellites.

The GEOS-5 GOCART module, described in Colarco et al. 2010 and 2013, includes 15 aerosol tracers (dust, sea salt, sulfate, black and organic carbon), ozone, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. MERRAero provides a companion gridded aerosol data set that can be used to study the impact of aerosols on the atmospheric circulation, climate, and air quality.

References:

Buchard, V., da Silva, A. M., Randles, C. A., Colarco, P., Ferrare, R., Hair, J., Hostetler, C., Tackett, J., and D. Winker: Evaluation of the surface PM2.5 in Version 1 of the NASA MERRA Aerosol Reanalysis over the United States, Atmospheric Environment, 125, 100-111, doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2015.11.004, 2016.

Buchard, V., da Silva, A. M., Colarco, P. R., Darmenov, A., Randles, C. A., Govindaraju, R., Torres, O., Campbell, J., and Spurr, R.: Using the OMI aerosol index and absorption aerosol optical depth to evaluate the NASA MERRA Aerosol Reanalysis, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 15, 5743-5760, doi:10.5194/acp-15-5743-2015, 2015.

Colarco, P., A. da Silva, M. Chin, and T. Diehl (2010), Online simulations of global aerosol distributions in the NASA GEOS‐4 model and comparisons to satellite and ground‐based aerosol optical depth, J. Geophys. Res., 115, D14207, doi:10.1029/2009JD012820.

Colarco, P. R., E. P. Nowottnick, C. A. Randles, B. Yi, P. Yang, K.-M. Kim, J. A. Smith, and C. G. Bardeen (2014), Impact of radiatively interactive dust aerosols in the NASA GEOS-5 climate model: Sensitivity to dust particle shape and refractive index, J. Geophys. Res. Atmos., 119, 753–786, doi:10.1002/2013JD020046.