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.

AER_RTAPLAND provides aerosol and land‐surface properties over land retrieved using the RemoTAP algorithm. Because RemoTAP jointly models surface and atmosphere over land, the suite also provides spectrally resolved land-surface BRDF and BPDF parameters for reflectance and polarization. Typical uses: air-quality and climate studies, aerosol context for ocean-color/land analyses, radiative transfer, and model evaluation.
Core geophysical variables in this suite include:
• bpdf_scale — Bi-directional surface polarization distribution function scaling parameter (unitless)
• ross_thick — BRDF Ross–Thick kernel coefficient (unitless)
• f_isotropic — Surface isotropic scaling parameter (unitless)
• li_sparse — BRDF Li–Sparse kernel coefficient (unitless)