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Climate and Radiation
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Aqua

Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA satellite mission designed to collect information about Earth's water cycle and other aspects of the Earth system. Aqua's six instruments collect a variety of global data on ocean evaporation, atmospheric water vapor, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice. Additional variables that Aqua measures include radiative energy fluxes; aerosols; vegetation cover on the land; phytoplankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans; and air, land, and water temperatures. Aqua was launched on May 4, 2002.

Launch Date

May 2002

Class

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Key Staffs

Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA satellite mission designed to collect information about Earth's water cycle and other aspects of the Earth system. Aqua's six instruments collect a variety of global data on ocean evaporation, atmospheric water vapor, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice. Additional variables that Aqua measures include radiative energy fluxes; aerosols; vegetation cover on the land; phytoplankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans; and air, land, and water temperatures. Aqua was launched on May 4, 2002.

Related Publications

2022. "Optimal Estimation Framework for Ocean Color Atmospheric Correction and Pixel-level Uncertainty Quantification.", Applied Optics, Vol. 61 No. 20 [10.1364/ao.461861] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Technical note: Constraining the hydroxyl (OH) radical in the tropics with satellite observations of its drivers – first steps toward assessing the feasibility of a global observation strategy.", Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 23 (11): 6319-6338 [10.5194/acp-23-6319-2023] [Journal Article/Letter]

2024. "Trends and Interannual Variability of the Hydroxyl Radical in the Remote Tropics During Boreal Autumn Inferred From Satellite Proxy Data.", Geophysical Research Letters, 51 (8): [10.1029/2024gl108531] [Journal Article/Letter]

2023. "Aqua MODIS TEB crosstalk correction improvement and image quality enhancement.", Earth Observing Systems XXVIII, 12685 [10.1117/12.2677395] [Proceedings]

2023. "Atmospheric nourishment of global ocean ecosystems.", Science, 380 (6644): 515-519 [10.1126/science.abq5252] [Journal Article/Letter]