The Ocean Biology DAAC produces near real-time (NRT) products using the best-available combination of ancillary data from meteorological and ozone data. As such, the inputs and the calibration used are less than optimal. Near real-time products provide a snapshot of the data during a short time period within a single orbit.

The AER_UAA suite provides aerosol optical properties (AOP), retrieved using the Unified Aerosol Algorithm (UAA). Core variables include measures that describe aerosol loading, size partitioning, and absorption. A companion product in the same family provides the UV Absorbing Aerosol Index (UVAI_UAA). Typical uses include air-quality and climate analyses, aerosol context for ocean-color atmospheric correction, trend studies, and model evaluation; users should refer to per-file metadata/flags for quality screening and wavelength availability.
Core geophysical variables in this suite include:
• Aerosol_Optical_Depth — Aerosol optical depth at multiple wavelengths (unitless)
• AAOD — Average aerosol optical depth (unitless)
• AerosolLayerHeight — Aerosol layer height (km)
• AerosolSingleScattAlbedo — Aerosol single scattering albedo (unitless)
• NUV_AerosolIndex — Near-UV aerosol index (unitless)
• CloudOpticalDepth — Cloud optical depth (unitless)
• CloudFraction — Radiative/derived cloud fraction (unitless; 0–1)
• l2_flags — Level-2 Processing Flags (bitmask)