The Microwave Limb Sounder Near-Real Time (MLS NRT) products are provided by the Land, Atmosphere Near-real time Capability for EOS (LANCE). To meet the LANCE latency requirement, the MLS NRT products are created with a tailored Product Generation Package (PGE), which is different from the PGE for standard product. The MLS NRT products are Version 3 and will continue until it is upgraded to Version 4 in 2016. The MLS Science team will develop the PGE for the NRT product Version 4. Users will be notified when the new version MLS NRT products are available.
The Microwave Limb Sounder Science Investigator-led Processing System (MLS SIPS) team has ceased production of Version 2 and Version 3 MLS standard data products. Version 2 is no longer available and Version 3 is archived at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC). Version 3 will be supported as a static dataset, with temporal coverage ending June 2015. Version 4 standard products will continue for the foreseeable future.
The highlights of improvement in MLS Version 4 are:
- Improved composition profiles in cloudy regions;
- Improved O3 and HCN;
- Improved H2O;
- New CH3OH product;
- More suitable reference surface for geopotential height;
- More useful OH retrievals for recent years.
Users can find the details of these improvements from section 1.4 “Differences between MLS v4.2x data and earlier v3.x data” of the Aura MLS Version 4.2x Level 2 data quality description document (Level 2 data quality description document—PDF) on the GES DISC MLS data product page.
