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MERRA-2: Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research

MERRA-2: Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research
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The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) is NASA's global atmospheric reanalysis produced by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO). It provides a consistent, continuous record of the atmosphere from 1980 to present at 0.5° latitude × 0.625° longitude resolution with 72 vertical levels.

MERRA-2 incorporates aerosol observations from AERONET, MODIS, and other sources through the GOCART aerosol module, making it particularly valuable for PM2.5 estimation in data-sparse regions. The dataset is widely used for long-term air quality trend analysis, climate studies, and model evaluation.

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Documentation, algorithm details, and background reading for MERRA-2.

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Access MERRA-2 through the provider portal or download it directly.

Tutorials

Self-paced tutorials to help you get started with MERRA-2.

Cite this dataset

NASA GMAO. MERRA-2: Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research. 1980 – Present. Accessed via the AIR4US Portal, https://gmao.gsfc.nasa.gov/reanalysis/MERRA-2.